


moon under water

by sunflowerwitches



Series: moon under water au [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: ??phil, M/M, No Angst, Strangers to Lovers, but theres obviously going to be some angst, historyteacher!dan, im really trying to write a fic with no major angst ok, lgbtq+ bar au, some lowkey smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-01-16 13:20:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 60,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21271691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerwitches/pseuds/sunflowerwitches
Summary: that “i'm pretending to be your boyfriend because you look very uncomfortable with that person hitting on you” AU no one asked for but i want to write





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> ok i saw someone tweet AGES ago saying they'd love to read fluffy fics with absolutely no angst. no character deaths / no trauma / etc and as much as i love writing angst i thought id try. obviously there's going to be SOME angst like does-he-like-me-does-he-not style but i'm going to keep it AT that !
> 
> i started writing this months ago but i went back to uni and couldnt finish it. it's still not finished but i have like half the chapters (that ive planned) drafted so i thought id finally post !!
> 
> enjoy <3

It’s becoming a weekly occurrence that Dan and his friends all do the same thing every Friday night. There’s an LGBTQ+ nightclub slash bar local to where Dan lives that they frequent all the time, The Moon Under Water. It’s a small quaint place with LGBT flags on every wall, obviously being there as it’s a gay bar, with a dance floor in the middle. Dan can’t say he often leaves the bar stools but he watches as his friends dance the night away.

That’s where they are going tonight and Dan has the same struggle he has every night. What does he wear; it’s between a black button-down shirt and black ripped skinny jeans or a black band tee and black ripped skinny jeans. Either is a look, a look that Dan wears all too much.

“Amelia, can you come here for a second?” Dan shouts as he runs to his bedroom door to allow his scream to reach the other side of the flat over the pounding music coming from the lounge.

Before Dan has a second to turn back around to his clothes all sprawled out on his double bed, Amelia comes padding into his room with a glass of coke and something alcoholic, Dan is certain. Dan would be lying if he said Amelia didn’t look absolutely stunning right now and if Dan wasn’t a complete fucking gay man, maybe he’d find her attractive with her ashy grey curly hair down to her shoulders and brown eyes that remind him of how he likes his coffee.

But he is a giant fucking queer with absolutely no attraction to girls, so she’s just going to have to settle with being his best friend. Not that she is settling remotely in any way because she’s not single and she’s, in fact, dating Dan’s other best friend, Sophia. She’s a cute ginger-haired girl with blue eyes that steal the room, but if anyone told her Dan had said that she’d skin his kneecaps.

They both steal the room. A couple of absolutely gorgeous girls taking on the world.

“What do you want?” Amelia slurs her words as she walks confidently into Dan’s room in a pretty little black dress with slits on the torso showing her pale skin and tattooed hipbone.

“I don’t know what to wear,” Dan says as he bites his lip looking at the clothes before him.

“Let me guess, it’s between black clothes or black clothes?”

“Okay okay, I get it. Just help me pick,” Dan mutters as he raises his hand to shove off Amelia’s smirky comment.

Dan quickly regrets asking such an intoxicated person for fashion advice because instead of actually helping, she just shoves the clothes out of the way and falls on her back on his bed.

Dan sighs as he grabs the first outfit that wasn’t creased thanks to Amelia, which happens to be the Muse band tee and black ripped skinny jeans and begins to undress, realising Amelia is still in fact in the room and blushes.

Amelia laughs at the sight which only makes Dan blush more and groan out a small _what!?_

“Please, you’re kidding yourself if you think I’d want to be on top of your naked body when I have the wonderful and beautiful Sophia to call my own.”

“What makes you think you’d be on top?” Dan laughs as he pulls the skinny jeans up his pale thighs and buttons them up, with a small hop to cover his ass properly.

Amelia scoffs and Dan doesn’t want to think too much into it as he stands in front of the mirror, messing with his hair a little like he hadn’t spent the previous hour beforehand doing just that.

“Why are you putting in the effort anyway, Daniel?” Sophia exclaims as she walks around the door frame twinkling her eyes at Dan through the mirror as she does so.

“Sophia! The love of my life! The girl I’d love to call my wife! How are you always so stunning?!” Amelia screams as she reaches her hands in the air out for a hug, which she does get eventually as Sophia closes distance and piles on Amelia, kissing her square on the mouth multiple times.

Dan laughs heartily as he sees but it doesn’t take him long to produce a loud faked gag noise in the mirror when he’s sure either one of them is watching.

“Oh shut up!”

Dan opens his mouth to retaliate with a witty and humorous response but he is interrupted by his flatmate, Lucas, walking into his room in a pale pink button-up shirt tucked into white boyfriend jeans.

“So everyone thought that come into the emo’s room and ditch me in the lounge?” Lucas mutters in a feinted annoyance, rolling his eyes as he pads over to Dan’s bed and lies next to Amelia and Sophia.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Dan replies, holding both hands up in the air in a way of saying he’s innocent.

“But somehow we’re all here?” Sophia butts in, laughing as she rolls off of her girlfriend slightly.

Dan laughs again and takes one final look in the mirror to style his hair before turning around, grabbing his phone off of charge and heading to the doorway.

“Are we fucking going or what?”

~~~~~

They make it to the bar in one piece, somehow even though Amelia has had her fair share to drink for everyone in the bar. She even made Dan get up and dance a few times, which may not have said much about how much alcohol Dan has ingested in such a short period of time.

They’re all sitting at the bar drinking away Dan’s round, which has funnily enough been that way the last three rounds but Dan isn’t going to bring it up and talking the night away about anything that catches their thoughts.

“How’s work then, Danny boy?” Sophia exclaims as she runs her finger along the rim of the glass of double whiskey and coke in front of her, her other hand on her girlfriend’s thigh next to her.

“You’ve been there a week, have the kids killed you off yet?” Amelia butts in, laughing lightly.

Dan takes a swig of his gin and tonic before chuckling, “It’s going well actually. The kids are nice to me, not how I remember high school being.”

“It’s probably because you’re close to their age, they think you’re one of them,” Lucas replies to him, running his hands through his hair as he finishes his sentence. Dan loves Lucas more than his entire life; they were both there for each other when they came out to their families, especially when it didn’t go so well for Lucas being transgender. Lucas automatically became part of Dan’s family, moving in with his family from the age of sixteen and now being twenty-five, they live together in their shared flat in the middle of London.

“Maybe you’re onto something, Lucas,” Dan laughs as he takes another swig of his drink.

He clears his throat as he looks up and catches a glimpse of Amelia and Sophia down each other’s throats and tries to hold back a laugh as he looks away, not wanting to see any more of his best friends smooching.

After an awkward couple of minutes between Dan and Lucas nattering about this and that, Amelia finally gets her tongue away from Sophia’s tonsils long enough to speak.

“Me and, uh, Sophia are going to go?” She says as she begins to stand up, holding Sophia’s hand in one hand and pulling out her skirt in the other, which Dan tries not to overthink.

“Of course,” Dan splutters.

Amelia walks over to Dan and slaps him over the side of the head.

“Anyway we’re going,” Amelia continues, skipping off with Sophia in hand.

There’s a mutter of goodbyes, goodnights and I-love-you’s before it was just Lucas and Dan alone with a couple of half-empty drinks.

“So why are you still single, Danny?”

“Why are _you_ still single?” Dan reflects the question back to Lucas. He doesn’t want to talk right now about his lack of love and men in his life.

“You know why,” Lucas rolls his eyes and laughs. It’s right. Dan knows why Lucas is still single; he’s just deflecting the question because he truly doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I know, I know,” Dan puts his hands up in a feinted retreat. “You are physically, mentally and sexually repulsed by the thought of anyone. I’ve heard it enough to know.”

Lucas laughs, “Right.”

Lucas finishes his drink and smiles innocently at Dan. “I hope you don’t hate me for wa-“

“Wanting to leave?”

Lucas nods sheepishly, “I can stay for a little bit longer?”

Dan shakes his head dramatically, the alcohol hitting him more than he’d like to admit. “No no you can go, I’ll just finish this nursed drink.”

“And that, Daniel, is why_ you_ are the only person on this planet I’d happily smooch,” Lucas exclaims, getting up on his feet and planting a sloppy kiss on Dan’s forehead.

Dan bats Lucas away with his hand and a small giggle and before Dan knows it, he is alone at the bar with an empty gin and tonic.

He orders another one and another one and another one and before he’s four more drinks down and heavily intoxicated. More than he likes to be on a night out, especially alone.

He takes the final sip out of his drink when the vacant barstool next to him is suddenly taken. Dan turns his head slightly to look at who’s sitting next to him.

He isn’t exactly shocked to see a slightly camp, but slightly hench, guy staring back at him. He turns his head straight back at his drink because he genuinely doesn’t have the time right now to deal with whatever is going to happen – hopefully, whoever is staring at him takes that as enough of a hint to leave him be.

“My name’s Ethan.”

Dan has to bite his lip to hold in the groan he wants to allow escape his mouth as soon as the mystery guy next to him opens his mouth to speak. Ethan. It wasn’t like Ethan was a bad looking lad because if Dan was interested tonight, he probably would have been the type of person Dan goes for but not tonight.

“Is the pretty boy not going to tell me his name?” Ethan mutters as he reaches out and tucks a stray curl behind Dan’s ear.

Dan coughs at the touch. Didn’t Ethan’s parents teach him manners?

“It’s Dan.”

“So Daniel, why are you here alone?” Ethan smirks.

“Just finishing my drink,” Dan says as he holds up his now empty glass, hoping to signal that he’s going to go home any second.

“Let me get you another, what’s your poison?” Ethan whispers as he invades Dan’s personal space once more to speak in his ear.

“No thank you.”

“I said, let me get you another, pretty boy.”

“And I said, no thank you,” Dan raises his voice slightly, turning around to look at Ethan, who’s still sporting the cocky grin he was five minutes ago.

Before anyone of them has the opportunity to continue this conversation, a tall guy with brown hair walks over to them and places his ass down onto one of the other seats next to Dan.

“You’re telling me you didn’t order us new drinks whilst I was in the bathroom, honey?” the stranger exclaims as he places his hand on Dan’s shoulder. Normally touches like this would anger Dan if they were from a stranger on a night out but this one didn’t feel possessive or mean, it feels safe and comforting.

Dan didn’t know what the fuck was going on but he couldn’t help but melt into the touch slightly.

“Who’s this?” the stranger continues as he grabs a menu from the side of the bar and scans it.

“Uh, this is Ethan,” Dan mutters, not taking his eyes off of the stranger. One because looking away would mean he’d have to look at Ethan and he doesn’t want that and two, because he’s so fucking confused.

“Hi Ethan, are you a friend from work?”

“N-no?”

“Where does he know you from?”

“He doesn’t.”

“He must do if he’s invited you out for our anniversary celebrations?”

At this Dan realises what this stranger is doing, and to be honest, he’s rather grateful. It seems that this wonderful stranger has seen what was going on and is attempting to help Dan escape the awkward situation, so Dan helps a little.

“Oh, I don’t know him at all, my love,” Dan says as he looks fondly at the stranger and then back at Ethan with a deadpan expression. “And I’m sorry for not getting you a drink. Last time I tried I got it wrong and I didn’t hear the end of it.”

Dan sighs in a feinted annoyance and is shocked when he turns back to the stranger with strangers hand on his own heart and scoffing.

“You thought I would have wanted a drink with diet coke, what do you take me for?” The stranger chokes out.

“You said you wanted to go on a diet!”

“_Not_ at the expense of my alcohol!”

Dan laughs because this stranger is actually kind of funny? But he turns back around to Ethan, only to notice that Ethan has in fact gone and is walking across the dancefloor away from this whole faked scene going on.

Dan turns his head back around to the stranger to find him looking at Dan with a smile on his face.

“What?”

“This is where you say thank you for saving me to the most dashing stranger you’ve ever seen,”

“How did you know I needed saving?” Dan smirks and cocks his eyebrow up at the bold assumption.

“Please,” the stranger scoffs again, “You literally oozed anxiety from the other side of the room. I had to help!”

“Well thank you,” Dan tilts his head and smiles, genuinely this time.

“It’s okay,” the stranger says. “Phil.”

Dan looks back at the stranger to notice his hand is stretched out in front of Dan and it’s then when Dan realises that the stranger’s actually telling him his name. Phil.

“Dan,” Dan says as he reaches his hand into the grasp of Phil’s and shakes his hand.

“Gay guys in clubs around here are always predatory, why are you here alone, Dan?”

Dan scoffs and rolls his eyes, “Where are your friends?”

“Point taken,” Phil laughs lightly and runs his hands through his quiffed hair.

Dan hardly ever finds someone in this type of situation and is automatically attracted to them but there’s something about Phil that just makes Dan melt into his seat.

“Two of my friends are together so they went home to, yeah. And my other friend just hates the party scene so he left early, I’m just finishing my drink,” Dan finally explains, because talking to Phil comes so easily to Dan and they’ve only known each other for five minutes.

“You’ve finished your drink,” Phil points out, smiling a tight grin innocently, whilst aiming his finger towards the empty glass that Dan still has his hands wrapped around, and has done for quite a while now.

“You’re right. I should probably get going,” Dan mutters, about to stand up when Phil places his hand on hands resting on the bar. Dan looks up and gains eye contact with Phil. Phil’s eyes are nothing but warmth and safety and he truly doesn’t want to leave.

“Stay.”

“Okay.”

Dan sits back down as Phil orders them both their drink – Dan another gin and tonic and Phil, a fruity cocktail with all the trimmings.

“So tell me about you,” Phil whispers as he takes a sip of his cocktail, taking the piece of lemon off of the side of the glass and sucking it, which startles Dan slightly because wow, how bold of Phil to eat a lemon without so much of a grimace.

“Cheesy but okay,” Dan giggles, adjusting himself in his seat to turn and look at Phil easier. “I’m a teaching assistant at a school not far from here. A history teacher, hopefully.”

“A teacher? Did you always want to do that?”

“Not really. My parents wanted me to go to university and I really like history so I just went for the obvious choice. I still don’t know what I want to do,” Dan exclaims.

“You still have time. You seem like you’d be a good teacher.”

“You don’t even know me,” Dan laughs at the pure idiocy of Phil’s comment, and Phil joins him for a second before taking another sip of his drink.

“Maybe I should get to know you,” Phil smiles and winks.

Dan looks away from Phil at this moment, blushing and feeling all of his blood in his body rise to his head. Phil should _not_ be having a reaction like this on Dan, but he is and Dan doesn’t want to push it. Pushing it would lead to things Dan lacks 100% control over.

“Maybe you should.”

Dan finally looks back at Phil and finds that his gaze has never once left Dan, and Dan doesn’t think that helps the blushing matter.

~~~~~

They chat for a few more hours about this and that. Getting to know one another until it’s suddenly bar closing and Dan shakes his head thinking about how he and Phil have sat talking since midnight and it’s now 3am. Where did the time go?

“Do you have a way of getting home?” Phil mutters as he buttons up his denim jacket before following Dan out of the bar onto the still busy London street. There’s never a time in London when the streets aren’t busy, regardless of whether it’s Oxford Street or a small back alley in Camden.

“Yeah, I only live down the road from here. I usually walk home,” Dan replies, pointing his hand down the street to indicate the way to his home.

He wasn’t expecting Phil to walk him home but he did exactly that and Dan didn’t have the willpower to say no, he wanted that.

They walk, what is literally a less than ten-minute journey, in pretty much silence apart from the occasional small talk about living in London and the weather.

“We’re home,” Dan says and instantly regrets saying _we're_ thinking it insinuates that it’s Phil’s home too when it’s nothing of the sort.

“Okay,” Phil mutters as he looks up at the apartment block, probably checking out where Dan lives, Dan thinks.

“Okay.”

“Well, then goodnight, Daniel.”

“Goodnight,” Dan replies with a hearty smile.

As he turns around to walk towards his apartment block door, he feels a gentle hand wrap around his bicep and pulls him back closer to Phil. Almost too close for a friendly encounter but Dan didn’t mind it.

“Give me your phone,” Phil says.

“Is this some type of polite mugging?” Dan laughs because even when he’s unsure of the situation he’s in, he still has to be the man who makes jokes.

“No you idiot, I’m giving you my number,” Phil joins in with the laughing.

“Oh.”

Dan hands him his phone and within a few seconds, he’s given his phone back with a new contact – Phil.

“Seriously, goodnight now,” Phil says as he walks backwards, back onto the footpath opposed to being on the steps leading up to Dan’s flat.

“Goodnight.”

Phil begins to walk away, leaving Dan on the stairs wondering what the fuck just happened.


	2. chapter two

Monday morning rolls around rather quickly and Dan has work. Nothing too interesting. All he does is sit in the back of the GCSE history classes waiting for any kids to need some support in any way, and no kid ever does, so his mind is allowed to wander.

The entire weekend was spent in the lounge with Lucas catching up on Drag Race with countless cups of hot chocolate and takeaway pizzas, with Lucas occasionally screaming at Dan for not remembering a drag queens name or forgetting to refill the kettle with water after he uses it all. Just a casual weekend at the Dan-Lucas household but one thing was massively different.

Dan couldn’t take his mind off of the stranger he had met at the Moon Under Water, Phil.

He had never been at a club or a bar and met someone he genuinely connected with, so he didn’t feel like he could speak about this particular with anyone. Amelia would almost cackle at the thought of Dan having a crush on anyone because in all the time he’s known her, from the beginning of university, Dan hasn’t even so much as looked at a guy.

After two hours of sitting in the back of the classroom, the bell goes and it’s time for break time in the grey tiled staff room with uptight fully qualified teachers who look down their nose at him just because he is an assistant and wanted to learn on the job instead of going _back_ to university to get his qualification that way.

So he walks out of the history classroom, into a corridor full of messy and clearly hormonal teenagers, empty mugs from him and the teacher he is shadowing, Mr Clarkson. His plan is to escape to the staffroom rather quickly, refill the mugs and have a steady walk back to the classroom before the break is over, maybe scroll through social media as he does all of that.

The staff room is always full of teachers ranting and raving about an annoying child in their class who didn’t do their homework or refused to participate in class delivery and Dan had learnt to ignore that and mind his own business, especially after the one time he attempted to suggest a solution to an English teacher about a week into his assistant career and the teacher stared him down like he literally pissed on her shoe. Not anymore.

He keeps his head down as he heads towards the kettle in the staff room and waits for it to boiling, grabbing his phone out of his pocket to pass time.

He scrolls through Twitter and after a few seconds switches to Tumblr and realises his grave mistake doing that in public, let alone an educational setting. There are no children in sight but the guilt he finds seeping in his mind after seeing the most intense and kinky gifset on his dashboard was enough. All he can think about is the heavy regret of following porn blogs on Tumblr because really, did he need to catch himself off guard seeing one guy inches deep in another?

It didn’t help what they were doing really made Dan’s head wonder. Not in a pervy way, but in a wow-im-horrifically-single way.

Suddenly, surprise surprise, his brain brings back the shiny brown-haired guy from the club this weekend.

Dan shakes his head in annoyance because Dan should not be thinking of a stranger in that way, definitely not one that he had met in a clubbing environment completely drunk and out of his face. He’s out of his depths with Phil, anyway.

But if he was out of his depths, why would Phil give Dan his number? Maybe to be friends? _God knows_.

Dan begins scrolling down his contacts app on his phone and halts the scroll as soon as he gets to Phil’s number. He could text him, but what would he say? /Hi Phil, it’s the guy you saved in the club from that horrific guy and I wanted to see if you wanted to hang out with someone who clearly couldn’t stick up for themselves/

Probably not no. He rolls his eyes and scrolls up the contacts until he sees Amelia’s number. He sighs as he brings up the text conversation and begins to write her a text.

_Dan 11:11am: I have an issue. A big one._

Dan drops his phone back into his pocket as he notices the kettle has boiled and he pours himself and Clarkson two mugs of coffee. He feels his phone buzz several times in his pocket as he does so but he ignores it, feeling like going back to his classroom is a top priority right now to escape the other teachers.

Walking back to the classroom is somewhat even quicker than the walk there, and that’s almost definitely not because he can feel his phone vibrating multiple times in his pocket as he dawdles to the room.

Placing the one mug on the desk at the front and exchanging a few meaningless words to Mr Clarkson, he walks back to the back of the classroom where his halfassed desk is and opens his phone again.

_Amelia 11:11am: oh my god what is the issue talk to me im here_

_Amelia 11:11am: im all ears_

_Amelia 11:12am: Dan if you have died on me before I got the gossip I will kill you_

_Amelia 11:12am: DANIEL_

_Amelia 11:13am: fine. I don’t care that much anyway_

_Amelia 11:15am: DANIEL HOWELL REPLY TO ME_

Dan chuckles at the blatant spam of text messages from his friend and begins to think of a reply.

_Dan 11:17am: I met a guy_

_Amelia 11:17am: A FUCKING GUY_

_Amelia 11:17am: are u fucking serious_

_Dan 11:17am: yes and im really going through it Amelia_

_Amelia 11:17am: okay okay what's wrong with meeting a guy???_

_Dan 11:18am: nothing wrong apart from the fact what am I supposed to do, you know?_

_Amelia 11:18am: when did it happen_

_Dan 11:18am: the club_

_Amelia 11:19am: u are telling me you met a guy at the club and you didn’t think to tell me until the weekend was over_

_Dan 11:19am: I didn’t think there was anything to tell_

_Dan 11:19am: I was getting hit on by a guy and he came, pretended to be my bf because he saw I was uncomfortable and we just spoke. He walked me home and gave me his number_

_Amelia 11:20am: and you haven’t text him?_

_Amelia 11:20am: you muppet what the hell is wrong with you_

_Amelia 11:20am: text him. Text him right now mr howell_

_Dan 11:21am: what if he doesn’t want to talk to me_

_Amelia 11:21am: it’s a bloody text and if he didn’t want to speak to you, he wouldn’t have given you his number_

_Amelia 11:21am: now text him_

Dan sighs into his phone and thinks. Amelia is right. There’s nothing wrong with the quick text message to Phil. If Phil didn’t want to message him back, he wouldn’t and that would be the end of that hopeful situation. He could just delete the number and move on with his life.

Besides, he isn’t even sure what he wants to do with the said number and with Phil. Maybe Dan does slightly fancy Phil but that doesn’t mean the feelings are the same, and neither does that mean that the feelings are genuine because he's only seen Phil once and that’s not enough to base off of.

What exactly can go wrong with texting Phil, Dan thinks and so he does.

_Dan 11:24am: hello its Dan from the bar on friday_

As soon as Dan sends the text message, the bell rings to signal that the break time was going and that the next lesson was coming, so Dan slips his phone back into his pocket and awaits the stampede of children to come.

~~~~~

Halfway through the lesson comes, and he swears he hears and feels his phone vibrate against his thigh but he ignores it because he doesn’t want to get his hopes up. It could easily as much be a text from his contract provider saying that his bill is due.

He tries to pass the time by walking around, asking students if they needed any help but as usual, children don’t really want to ask for help even if they need it. So, Dan begins to pad down the classroom back at his desk when Mr Clarkson calls him over.

“Can you go to the library and pick up these books for my, uh, our next class?” Mr Clarkson explains as he hands Dan a post-it note with a few names of books on it. Of course, Mr Clarkson is using Dan to do the tedious work that he can't be arsed to do himself.

“Of course, I’ll go and do it now.”

“Thank you, Mr Howell!”

Dan nods in agreement as he walks out of the classroom into the empty hallway. Upon automatic reflex, he puts his hand in his trouser pocket and pulls his phone out. He notices he has a few unread notifications, from Amelia who’s ranting in his text message app because he hasn’t replied to him for a few minutes too long and a text or two from Phil.

_Phil 11:35am: hello Dan from the bar on friday, its Phil from the bar on friday too_

Dan actually giggles reading the text and blushes slightly when he realises he fucking giggled at a text message in public. Luckily all students were in their classrooms learning so the only people who heard Dan’s giggle was himself and a few secretary teachers who were walking past at the time.

_Dan 11:47am: sorry I didn’t text you straight away after clubbing, work is wild_

Dan makes it into the library and begins searching down the lengthy walls upon walls of bookshelves. There's a lot of books that Dan needs and they definitely are in the history section of the library but that doesn’t mean Dan is going to directly walk there and collect them. They could POSSIBLY be in the biology section, who would know for sure?

Dan walks down the second aisle when he feels his phone vibrate in his hand, turning around his hand to show him the notification.

_Phil 11:48am: don’t apologise history isn’t going to stop for anyone_

He chuckles as he reads Phil’s joke and sits himself down in a chair at the end of one of the bookshelves, way away from the main aisle so no one could see him. He probably shouldn’t be hiding from his job and should definitely find all of the books Mr Clarkson has asked to collect but it seems so much easier just hiding away to be able to text Phil for a little while.

_Dan 11:49am: you're right i got dead kings to see and dinosaur bones to do_

_Phil 11:49am: excuse me dinosaur bones to do? wow tell me more Daniel_

_Phil 11:49am: i cant believe i didnt study history past gcse_

_Dan 11:50am: shut up u idiot you know what I meant_

_Phil 11:50am: no I don’t actually tell me about the dinosaurs you are boning_

Dan actually _snorts_ as he reads Phil’s text message, so much so that he has to dart his eyes around quickly to check whether anyone heard him. The coast is clear so Dan texts back.

_Dan 11:51am: you did not say that_

_Phil 11:52am: i did so_

Dan thinks to himself that he should definitely get back to collecting the books for Mr Clarkson so he idly does so, whilst texting Phil back every now and then. It couldn’t be perfect after all.

~~~~~

The rest of the day was spent with occasional text messages between Dan and Phil and walking up and down the corridors running errands for Mr Clarkson and a few other teachers that caught Dan walking about, annoyingly so.

It’s almost 3pm when Dan looks outside and notices the absolutely horrendous downpour that’s flooding the streets outside.

The bell rings soon enough and Dan knows he has to race the rain, quite literally. He packs up his stuff into his backpack and begins to make his way to the main gates so he could begin his walk home in the pouring rain.

He casually grabs his phone again whilst walking, to ignore the mass amounts of students and colleagues he is walking past who he doesn’t want to converse with, and also to text Phil.

_Dan 3:02pm: it’s raining and I have to walk home and wish me luck_

He puts his phone back into his pocket as he puts everything on the floor, to put his coat on, before going outside. Just as he puts his coat over his shoulders and his arms into its sleeves, he feels a vibration on his leg that wasn’t just a text message.

He pulls his phone out and sees someone is calling him. Holy shit, Phil is calling him.

“Hello,” Dan mutters as he answers the phone and puts it to his ear. He begins to place his backpack back onto his shoulders as he listens to Phil on the other end of the phone.

“There’s no way I’m letting you walk home in the rain so where do you work? I’m coming to pick you up,” Phil replies through the rustling on the other end. If Dan was thinking right, he would know that Phil was putting his coat on in a hurry to leave the house.

“No, it’s completely fine. I don’t live too far.”

“Nonsense, text me the address and I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“No, seriously it’s fi-“

“Daniel Howell I will not ask you again, text me the damn address. I’ll see you in ten.”

And just like that, Phil hangs up the phone and Dan has no choice to text Phil the address to his school. He sits down in the reception chairs and waits and tries not to think about how fucking weird this is right now.

A guy he has met once, in a bar/club for that matter, is coming to pick him up from work because it’s raining.

So he does the only thing he knows to do in situations like this, text a gay panic to his friends.

_Dan 3:07pm: guys. what the fuck is my life right now_

_Dan 3:07pm: tell me why the guy from the bar is coming to pick me up from work_

_Amelia 3:09pm: excuse me WHAT_

_Lucas 3:09pm: DAN ????????_

_Amelia 3:09pm: please tell me he’s dropping you off home I wanna see a sexy man_

_Lucas 3:10pm: IS ANYONE GOING TO TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING_

_Amelia 3:10pm: im coming over I want to see a sexy man_

_Dan 3:11pm: guys not the time_

_Dan 3:11pm: really thought you’d be here for my gay ass panicking_

_Amelia 3:12pm: im sorry we are !!!! but Dan the man who hasn’t looked at another guy in years has a date_

_Dan 3:12pm: not a date_

_Lucas 3:12pm: idk what the fuck is going on but even I know it’s a date_

_Amelia 3:13pm: its definitely a date_

_Dan 3:13pm: oh god it’s a date_

_Dan 3:13pm: guys oh no_

_Lucas 3:14pm: gay date at ur flat with lucas and amelia by your side. wow_

_Amelia 3:15pm: first date goals_

Just as Dan begins panicking and internally screaming, he gets another text from Phil saying he is outside and ready for Dan to get in the car – to which doesn’t help Dan’s panicking.

But he does what any well rounded put together person would do in this situation, he gets up and leaves the school to meet Phil. He pads down the driveway of the school, ignoring the pouring rain that is drowning him regardless of the hood he has covering himself.

He walks for a grand total of a couple of minutes before he sees an icy blue mini parked up on the side of the road with a man far too tall for a car that small resting on the car boot. It makes Dan chuckle to himself quietly because Phil definitely could have sat in the car and flashed his lights or papped his car horn but no, he went through the effort of standing outside the car in the pouring rain with no hood on.

“Hello,” Dan says as he walks towards the car and Phil.

“Hiya. Let's get in shall we?”

They both get into the car, doing their seatbelt as they do so.

“So where do you live?”

“Huh?”

“I am dropping you off you melon,” Phil laughs as he starts up the car and begins to pull off down the road.

“Right. You’re right. I’ll put it in google maps for you,” Dan replies and blushes slightly because he’s a fucking idiot and forgot the whole reason for this. He reaches for his phone and types his address into the maps app, placing it in Phil’s eyesight so he can get to Dan’s home.

They take most of the journey in radio silence because, to be honest, Dan doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been in this situation before.

Phil sighs as they pull up to the traffic lights. The ones that Dan always seems to get stuck at when he’s coming to and from work on the bus. He reaches to the radio in the centre console but stops, turning to Dan and smiling.

“Do you mind if I put music on?” Phil says with his smile blinding Dan.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Dan replies, but he can't look away from that fucking smile.

Phil nods and turns back to the centre console, turning on the radio as he does so.

Dan literally has to hold back a gasp when he hears the familiar tunes of his favourite Muse song, New Born, being played on the radio.

“You like Muse?” Dan says shockingly.

“Like? Love, actually.”

“Muse is my favourite fucking band,” Dan adds on, with a little giggle.

Phil giggles right back at Dan and Dan would be lying if he didn’t have to hold back another gasp at the delightful sound of Phil Lester giggling. “Okay.”

~~~~~

Dan doesn’t notice when they near his flat but suddenly, the car comes to a stop and Phil turns off the engine. He looks over to see Phil smiling away at him, bright blue eyes and all.

Dan coughs, “Uh, do you wanna come in? For a coffee or whatever, to say thank you?”

“Sure. Not gonna say no to coffee,” Phil replies with a chuckle.

They both get out of the car and walk to Dan’s front door as quickly as possible, trying to avoid the pouring rain from above them. Before he knows it, he and Phil are kicking their shoes off at the front door and walking into his apartment, with the faint sounds of laughter coming from the lounge.

He wants to avoid it because he knows Amelia and Lucas are obviously going to be there and he doesn’t want _that_ but it’s too late. The sound of two fully grown men traipsing through the front door and trying to kick off their shoes has made them aware and before Dan can hide Phil in any way, Amelia comes skipping out of the lounge into the hallway before them.

“Hiya Danny boy,” Amelia smirks as she doesn’t even look at Dan, instead she’s focusing on Phil. Dan hates her for it because she’s not making it lowkey at all, checking out if Phil is a good enough person for Dan.

“Hi Ame,” he coughs when he realises he should at least reply to her. “This is Phil. He dropped me off home and we’re going to have some coffee and then go to my ro-“

“Hi, Phil. How do you know Dan?” she says with narrowing eyes.

Dan turns to Phil, expecting to see him cringe at the blatant interrogation and running to put his shoes back on and escape, but instead, he sees Phil smiling ear to ear no anxiety insight.

“Hi, Amelia is it?” He asks and when she replies with an enthusiastic nod, he continues. “We met at the LGBT bar on Friday? I gave him my number and he couldn’t stay away.”

Phil looks directly at Dan and smirks, pushing into Dan’s side to tease him.

“Oh, so you’re gay?”

“Last time I checked I was,” Phil laughs, not seeing any less comfortable with the conversation and Dan feels bad that he can’t help but stare. How is Phil literally okay? Dan knows he would have run a mile if this were him.

Again, almost like the world wants to make Dan cringe anymore, Lucas walks around the corner of the lounge door with a frown on his face.

“I’m Lucas, Hi!” he says as he closes the distance between himself and Phil to shake his hand, and they do. What the fuck?

“Okay, sorry to disturb you guys. Go back to whatever you’re doing. We’ll be in the kitchen,” Dan interrupts looking red in the face, finally finding the ability to speak again after having nothing but anxiety running through his veins.

Amelia and Lucas snigger at each other as they run back into the lounge to return to god knows what they were doing.

Dan sighs as he pads his way to the kitchen, hoping Phil is still following. Once they both get into the kitchen and he watches Phil grab a seat on the breakfast bar, Dan speaks. “I’m so fucking sorry for them. My friends are so an-“

“Annoying?”

Dan chuckles as he lets go of the breath he was involuntarily holding, “Yeah.”

“Don’t worry about it. My friends are annoying too, you’ll see when you meet them.”

“When I meet them?” Dan stops taking the mugs out of the cupboard in a panic as soon as he hears that.

“We’re friends, Dan. Of course, you’re probably gonna see my friends at some point,” Phil clarifies, before he stops and eyes up Dan for a second before continuing. “We’re friends, right?”

“Oh yeah, yeah of course. Sorry, I thought you meant like _right now_,”

“I mean, I could give them a ring, Dan?” Phil teases.

“As much as I would love to meet your friends, I’ve had enough of annoying friends for one day,” Dan giggles.


	3. chapter three

Dan eventually makes the cup of coffees for both himself and Phil and tries not to cringe so much about how his friends embarrassed him in the next room. He’ll almost definitely shout at them later.

“Here you go,” Dan more or less whispers as he hands Phil his mug gently, smiling.

“Thank you.”

They both take a sip of their coffees in complete silence before they look at each other and giggle. It’s such an innocent moment that Dan can’t help but think would have otherwise have been really cringey if it was with anyone else but Phil. Or anyone else that he has known for years, which is weird because he’s known Phil for literally a few days.

“Do you wanna go into my room or something?” Dan offers, realising that sitting on a breakfast bar stool for hours on end would be super uncomfortable and he at least wants to make a good impression on Phil. He begins to walk out of the kitchen as he turns around to check if Phil is following.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Phil teases as he leaps up from his seat to follow Dan, winking as he catches Dan’s eyes. Dan blushes. He didn’t mean for it to sound so, so loaded but the insinuation wasn’t a lie. Dan _wouldn't_ hate that but he wasn’t going to admit it right now.

Dan turns back around and as he pads the floor into the hallway, keeping his head down to hide the blush, he is witness to a pair of feet in front of his. A pair of bright pink socked feet. He directs his gaze upwards to find Amelia in front of him, _yet again_, smirking.

“Where you going?” she says as she looks past Dan, almost through him, much to Dan’s annoyance.

“To my room.”

“Oooh, that’s. Interesting,” Amelia brings her smirk back onto her face again and Dan tries so incredibly hard to not tut in her face. He loves her so much but he doesn’t ever remember being this difficult when she brought home Sophia. But he guesses Amelia is just looking out for him. She knows exactly how difficult Dan’s life has been, particularly his love life, with coming out and stuff. So maybe that’s why she’s being so extra and protective suddenly.

Phil giggles and it brings Dan back into the present suddenly. God, he didn’t know he had an actual angel in his presence.

“Not like that,” Dan interrupts her smirk and dirty thoughts with honesty because nothing was going to happen as much as Dan’s aware.

“I mean,” Phil butts in, still giggling. “Bold to assume.”

“Phii_iil_,” Dan whines, turning around to see the giggling Phil is doing spreading across his face in the form of rosy cheeks and crow’s feet around his eyes. He definitely has an actual angel in his flat tonight. “Not exactly helping is it?”

Dan does eventually laugh though. Because it’s funny and seeing Phil reacting in such a way, it is difficult to catch the infectious laugh.

“Okay, well,” Amelia says as she looks between both of the boys, who clearly weren’t paying attention to her anymore, only themselves. “Use protection.”

She laughs lightly as she turns around to walk back into the lounge with Lucas, and if Dan wasn’t mistaken, Sophia too. She must have finished work early.

“Don’t worry! We will,” Phil giggles even loudly as he grabs Dan’s hand and drags him into the room furthest away from the lounge which was luckily Dan’s bedroom. He didn’t know how Phil guessed it correctly but maybe it was the black door sign saying Dan’s Room that gives it away.

~~~~~

Dan shuts the door behind himself and Phil once they enter his room. It’s in this precise moment that Dan wishes he had installed locks on his door because he suspects that he _knows_ that Amelia and Lucas will come spying on them soon. It's just something they’ll probably do and he’s already feeling embarrassed about it.

Phil places his mug down on the desk, shortly followed by Dan doing the same before he begins the brief tour of Dan’s room.

“Your room is pretty cute,” Phil mutters as he looks around Dan’s room with twinkling eyes, still not letting go of Dan’s hand as he walks into the room closer. Dan’s trying not to overthink the fact that Phil hasn’t let go yet. He’s definitely pulling off the nonchalant look with the trembling hand that Phil can almost definitely feel.

“Thank you. I take pride it in,” Dan laughs nervously as he watches Phil’s gaze as he inspects the room with wonder. He sees Phil’s eyes stand still at the Pride flag on his wall with fairy lights surrounding it and his heart warms when he catches Phil’s toothy grin.  
Dan hasn’t always had pride in his sexuality and he’s been through some shit that almost made him hide his sexuality away forever and live a lie. But now, with the help of LGBTQ+ friends and university, he genuinely has begun feeling comfortable in himself. He’s gay. He loves men. That’s it.

“Really pretty,” Phil repeats himself as he turns around to look at Dan, with a warm smile on his face. Dan feels all of the moisture in his mouth leave and he struggles to swallow. Clearly, Phil wasn’t flirting or talking to him but Dan’s brain that’s crushing right now, can't see anything else.

Phil lets go of Dan’s hand eventually, much to Dan’s distaste and pads his way to Dan’s bed. He lies down, surprisingly not on Dan’s side of the bed, and Dan just stares for a second.

He surely isn’t going to join Phil in his bed but he isn’t going to overthink this because Phil is just _lying_ on his bed and there’s nothing loaded with that.

Fortunately for Dan, Phil drags him out of his thought process by lifting his head up and laughing, “Dan?”

“Huh?”

“Are you just going to stand there and watch me from a creepy distance?”

“O-of course not,” Dan laughs as he pads his way to his bed, to awkwardly lie next to Phil. He still kept enough distance so they weren’t touching. But that distance didn’t last long because as soon as Dan got comfortable, Phil shuffles over so their bodies are basically touching in every way.

Dan struggles to not feel on edge once Phil grazes his thigh alongside Dan’s. He’d be lying if he didn’t miss the touch every time Phil’s thigh dances away for a few seconds.

“How was work?” Phil questions as he grabs one of Dan’s throw pillows and rests it under his head to get comfortable.

“It was okay,” Dan mutters, whilst laughing under his breath. “The basics of being a teaching assistant means that you have to rally around for everyone and do everyone’s dirty work. So yeah it’s okay.”

“Dirty work?”

“You know, like fetching a million books from the library – that’s what I was doing when I was texting you actually – or printing god knows how many worksheets. That sort of stuff.”

“Right,” Phil coughs, turning his head to look at Dan. “That sounds so boring.”

“It is. Unbelievably so, but it’s worth it when I become a proper teacher in a year or so’s time.”

Phil hums. Dan turns his head to match Phil’s and catches a beaming smile.

“What about you? You’ve never said what you do?”

“It’s boring,” Phil chuckles as he turns his head back to the ceiling and Dan can’t lie that he misses the lingering eye contact with piercing blue orbs.

“Come on, tell me?” Dan laughs into the air, blissfully unaware of the reason why Phil refuses to let Dan know where he works. “Do you work at a brothel or something? Is that why you won’t tell me?”

Dan is clearly joking and he hopes Phil can hear that in his voice as he speaks to him. Fortunately, his mild anxiety is erased as soon as Phil opens his mouth and a laugh just as equal to his own.

“If I was a prostitute, my job definitely wouldn’t be boring,” Phil teases. “And it would be an easy way to cover up how hopelessly single I am.”

Dan doesn’t want to be the stereotypical horny gay right now but all he hears is that Phil is single which piques his own interest, even though he isn’t about to admit that to Phil.

“God, I can relate. I would happily take on sex work right now just to get some.”

“Noted,” Phil teases again, with the small hum of laughter under his breath. Dan shoves him with his leg in a feinted annoyance.

Phil giggles and shoves his leg back towards Dan, and they go back and forth kicking each other lightly for a few seconds until they stop to catch their breath after laughing so hard.

Dan turns his head again to look at Phil and much to his surprise, already finds Phil looking back at him. Time seems to go by slowly for a few minutes, even though it seems like hours. Dan will laugh to himself later about how stereotypically early 2000s rom-com this seems.

They take their time but Dan’s heart goes a million miles an hour once Phil reaches his one hand outwards onto Dan’s cheek. Dan can so much as sit there and take it, feeling suddenly like he’s been staring at Medusa for far too long and her glossy eyes have turned him to stone.

It’s when Phil strokes his hand up from Dan’s cheek into his curly hair, combing his fingers through the thick brown locks with an innocent smile on his face, that Dan automatically leans in closer almost like he cannot help himself.

He feels his cheeks warm up with a scatter of rosy pink and dusty red blotches as he feels the soft warm breath of Phil’s against his lip. He begins to part his lips to allow Phil to meet him in the middle and he is so sure that he feels Phil coming in to close the ga-

Suddenly the door is thrown open and Amelia comes barging in and just like that, Phil separates himself from Dan in the blink of an eye and Dan can’t help but miss the touch. He flings his head to turn towards his bedroom door with a sigh.

“What do you want, Amelia?” Dan quietly croaks. Quietly because Dan isn’t the most shouty person ever and all of the silence and almost almost kissing (bold of Dan to even begin to assume) made his voice all raspy.

“Jesus, Dan, calm down,” Amelia teases as she pads down towards the bed and forces her way in between Dan and Phil on the bed. “Just wondering if Phil was sleeping over tonight?”

Dan lets out a small breath at the question. It’s not even Amelia’s flat and she’s barging into his own room in his own flat asking if his own friend is staying over. Real funny.

Before Dan has the opportunity to open his mouth and speak out against Amelia’s weirdness, the bed is shaken and he turns his head to see Phil standing up, with a small but very noticeable frown on his face.

“I’m, uh, gonna go?” Phil mutters as he stands up properly ironing out the creases and ruffles in his black suit shirt. Dan pretends to not feel a pang in his heart from hearing those words.

Dan darts up from the announcement and tries not to scour at Amelia for ruining The Moment. “I’ll see you out?”

“Y-yeah, yeah sure.”

Dan follows Phil out of his room where he watches Phil put his trainers and jacket back on and have to pretend like he wishes he wasn’t seeing Phil leave. Because in reality, he doesn’t want Phil to leave, he only just got there.

“Thank you for, uh, having me over?” Phil chuckles as he puts his left arm through its sleeve and buttons the denim jacket up to his neck. “I’ll text you?”

Dan ignores that that sounds like a question and just nods and smiles warmly and he’s glad when Phil ruins it, just as warm and genuine as his own.

Phil wraps his hand around the door handle and pulls the front door open, stepping outside and turning around so Dan can see his face a final time thankfully.

“Well, see ya,” Dan whispers as he steps forward to be in the doorway too.

“Bye,” Phil smiles as he takes a couple of steps backwards, before turning around and walking down the hallway to leave the apartment building. Dan removes all dignity he has left by watching Phil walk away from him.

He sighs as he shuts the door, turning around to lean against it. All he can think about is what could have happened on his bed with Phil, whilst he runs his own hand through his hair similarly to how Phil did just ten minutes or so ago.

He closes his eyes and all he can feel is the reminiscence of Phil’s breath lingering on his lips. Once he opens them he sees Amelia standing in his bedroom doorway with a seemingly genuine smile on her face.

“Don’t,” Dan mutters under his breath.

“Don’t what, Danny,” she smirks.

“You know what,” Dan breaths in between his teeth as he stands up from against the door once again and walks past her into his room, to sit on his bed.

He did the forgettable in not shutting his bedroom door behind him so Amelia just follows him to sit right next to him on the bed, “I don’t. Care to enlighten me?”

“Shut up,” he chuckles lightly but the anger on his voice is still noticeable. “Next time you want to try and cockblock me, please don’t, okay?”

“Whoa no need to be dick about it,” Amelia laughs as she stands up to leave the room. “I didn’t mean to.”

Dan turns his head to look directly at Amelia and he can _still_ see the smirk on her face which only makes his anger flame all the more.

“This isn’t even your apartment. Why were you even asking?” Dan grits between his teeth.

“Someone’s angry they didn’t get some,” Amelia teases as she leaves his room and closes the door behind herself.

Dan throws a decorative pillow towards the door at full force, “You know what maybe I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can promise that this isn't angst. it's not. poor philly just got flustered


	4. chapter four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologises for not uploading yesterday like i'm meant to! it's my birthday weekend (my birthday is tomorrow, the 25th) so ive been celebrating. i went to a yungblud gig friday and his m&g on the saturday, followed by family stuff so i didnt have time to upload !

Dan tries not to think about the monumental fuck-up between him and Phil as he goes to sleep. He thinks it’s successful when all he dreams about is rainbows and hot guys he meets at bars, and he desperately tries not to see the similarity in that as he wakes up from it.

He opens his eyes as he wakes up and wipes the remaining about of crusty sleep from his eyes with a groan. It’s a Saturday morning which means he doesn't have work for which he is super grateful for. But, he does have a long list of things to do today. The mundane adult-life things that Dan hates doing but he’s grateful for them all today as he needs the distraction.

He knows he has to go and do food shopping because god knows Lucas hasn’t done it. Dan always finds if he waits for Lucas to do it, he’s living off toast for a few days – which of course isn’t the worst thing but it’s not ideal when you need to survive dealing with thousands of kids as your day job. He also has to do some work for his on-the-job PGCE certificate, even though he doesn’t want to.

He just about thinks to get up and begin his day when he hears his phone buzz a couple of times over on his bedside table. He reaches up to grab it when he sees the familiar name of Phil on his phone.

_Phil 9:13am: hi uh_

_Phil 9:13am: im sorry for bailing and freaking out on you yesterday, I hope there's no hard feelings?_

Dan thinks about it, of course, there are no hard feelings. Why would there be? Dan couldn’t even see that they almost kissed because he couldn’t know for sure. He wouldn’t even class what Phil did as freaking out and bailing. So he unlocks his phone and types out a reply.

_Dan 9:15am: hello don’t apologise ?? you did nothing wrong_

Dan climbs out of bed, phone in hand, and walks towards the bathroom to prepare for the day. He brushes his teeth as he hears his phone buzz again and as he swills his mouth out with water, he replies to Phil.

_Phil 9:17am: I freaked_

_Dan 9:18am: no u didn’t_

He walks back into his room, phone very much glued to his hand. He picks out an easy outfit for today. Nothing too special, just an oversized striped sweater with ripped black boyfriend jeans.

_Phil 9:20am: don’t even dan, I did because we almost kissed and got walked in on._

Oh, Dan thinks. So that was what was going to happen. Fuck. Okay.

_Dan 9:27am: I understand why you would have been a bit dazed_

_Dan 9:27am: amelia is a big yikes_

He French-tucks his sweater into the top of his jeans and looks at himself in the mirror. It’ll do for today surely, Dan thinks, he isn’t going to see anyone of importance as he walks to the shop and buys bread. He reaches for his phone, snapping a couple of outfit pictures for his Instagram story because even though it’s an easy outfit it’s still kind of cute. He shoves his phone into his jeans pocket as he puts on his trusty black leather jacket and shoves his house keys into his pocket. He makes his way to this front door in the hallway and toes his shoes on before properly leaving the apartment to adventure outside.

_Phil 9:29am: ha yeah .. but im sorry genuinely I didn’t mean to_

_Dan 9:32am: no worries honestly x_

He puts earphones in as he walks down the busy London street, listening to Waterparks’ new album because it only came out a few days ago and he hasn’t had a chance yet. But he would be lying if he says he was paying any attention to it, phone in hand texting Phil.

_Phil 9:34am: I’m glad you aren’t pissed off with me. That’s the last thing I want x_

_Dan 9:37am: I’m not so quit ya worrying mate (: x_

_Phil 9:38am: what are you doing today anyway?_

_Dan 9:42am: I am walking to the shops to get some food in_

_Dan 9:42am: we all know if I left lucas to do it I wouldn’t eat for a week_

_Phil 9:44am: that’s a point_

_Phil 9:44am: I could’ve driven u_

Dan halts replying for a second to think about how that would have gone down. He would have _loved_ to have seen Phil again but he knows he wouldn’t have got much done. He would have been far too preoccupied to get anything more than milk and bread, and he knows he needs more than that.

_Dan 9:45am: no no it is okay I would have been far too distracted to get stuff done today if u were here_

Dan makes it to the supermarket and begins making rounds of the aisles, picking up every item he thought was necessary for this weekly food intake. An orange there, a bag of rice here. The basics with a few treats thrown in.

_Phil 9:51am: oh is that right?_

_Phil 9:51am: why is that_

_Dan 9:54am: shut up u know why_

Dan chuckles to himself whilst he is at the checkout as he reads Phil’s texts. He’s one hundred per cent sure that Phil knows why and it’s actually laughable that he’s teasing Dan in such a way.

_Phil 9:57am: don’t think I do_

_Dan 10:03am: well im not going to tell u so good luck w that !_

Dan leaves the shop with two large bags full of food but he decides he isn’t ready to go home just yet. He looks at his bags briefly and realises he didn’t buy any frozen stuff this time so he can technically stay out a bit longer than usual, so he pads the streets down to the busier part of down to do some personal shopping, for a treat or two.

He rarely treats himself to new clothes or anything of that nature but he did a bit of overtime this week, so he supposes he can afford it and he _deserves_ it.

He shamelessly walks into Topshop, which is often where he buys his edgy clothes and cute emo boy accessories, even though he isn’t going to admit to anyone that that is his aesthetic wrapped up in one.

He picks up a couple of striped tees and a pair of tartan trousers and heads to the changing room. He knows these things don’t necessarily make an outfit, because even Dan isn’t bold enough to wear mixed patterns but they’ll make at least three different outfits with things he already has at home and that’s enough.

He tries on the striped tees first because they’ll easily go with his boyfriend jeans and snaps a couple of pictures that he thinks about sending Phil later once he’s bought them. He takes off his own jeans and replaces them with the tartan ones. He decides they look cute too and begins to put his clothes back on to go to the checkout.

He grabs his phone to see that Phil has texted him a few times and blushes. He doesn’t know why he’s blushing but he accepts it anyway, sitting on the little fluffy stool they give you in the changing rooms.

_Phil 10:05am: mr howell you’re such a tease_

_Phil 10:07am: im bored_

_Dan 10:26am: I cant relate im shopping_

_Phil 10:27am: I know_

_Phil 10:27am: u rudely won't let me join._

_Dan 10:29am: im buying some clothes do u want to see_

_Phil 10:29am: why would I say no wtf_

_Dan 10:30am: [img.0611.1016.jpg] understandable im cute_

Dan chuckles as he lifts himself up from the stool and grabs everything in the changing room as he walks out to head to the checkout to purchase his new clothes. Whilst he’s waiting for the queue to go down, he checks his phone and sees a string of texts from Phil, and he smiles.

_Phil 10:31am: oh my god_

_Phil 10:31am: oh my GOD_

_Phil 10:31am: OMG_

_Phil 10:32am: those trousers look so good on you what the FUCK_

_Phil 10:32am: god definitely is a man_

_Phil 10:32am: please wear them when we next see each other_

Dan chuckles at the sight of Phil losing his shit slightly. He’s never really seen himself have that level of control and ability with another man but he isn’t complaining. All he wants is to make Phil lose his mind at the sheer sight of him, and this is fully clothed. Dan blushes at the thought of Dan not being clothed and the reaction that may spark from Phil.

Dan knows that he has sent a series of photos to previous flings and boyfriends (if you can call them that because Dan knows he’s never had a serious boyfriend before in his life) and sure they have been grateful. But they haven’t been nearly as grateful with entire pictures of Dan’s naked body as Phil has with a fully clothed picture.

He quickly shoves his phone back into his jeans pocket as he goes to the checkout, busying himself with idly chatting with the checkout girl who was dressed all in black and lace – Dan will laugh to himself later that a goth working in a fast fashion shop like Topshop says a lot about the world.

Soon enough, he’s exposed to the cold autumnal air with an extra bag in tow and he reaches for his phone to eventually reply to Phil. He’s relistening to Waterparks’ new album because he wasn’t paying attention the first time, he can’t think why.

_Dan 10:37am: I bought them, im sure you'll be glad (;_

_Phil 10:39am: im really glad thank u_

Dan decides to leave his phone in his pocket until he returns home because the cold air around him is making his fingers cold and he has far too many bags in his hands. He throws all of the bags into one palm, which is probably not the best idea because they are incredibly heavy, and places one hand in his pocket, wrapping his hand around his phone just to feel that much closer to Phil.

He makes it home much quicker than it took him to get into the city centre and he tries not to think about why that may be. He throws his coat and shoes back where they belong by his front door, throwing the Topshop bag by his bedroom door as he walks his way into the kitchen with the bags of food.

He begins to put the food in its respectable places as he feels a pair of hands worm their way around his waist and a head rest on his shoulder. He’s about to let out a loud whimper (maybe a screech) when he hears the familiar of chuckle behind him instead.

“My man has returned home!” Lucas chuckles as he places a large sloppy kiss onto Dan’s cheek.

Dan pats him away with a burst of laughter as he begins searching back into one of the large bags full of food, putting a bunch of fridge food, such as cheeses, milk and vegetables, back into the fridge.

“Do you wanna venture outside again tonight?” Lucas asks with a head tilt, making Dan turn around to directly look at him. “Or is that too much outside for a wee little introvert like you?”

“Shut up, where?” Dan replies, turning back to the food.

“A bar meant for how the other half lives,” Lucas cackles.

“That being?”

“A heterosexual bar, Dan. Get with it,” Lucas teases as he jumps onto the counter, firmly in the way of the cupboard Dan is trying to put food back in.

“Okay,” Dan mutters, biting his lip. He doesn’t _hate_ ‘normal’ people bars but he definitely doesn’t want to make a habit of going to them. He knows that Lucas wants to go to a straight people bar because there’s no assumption on his sexuality, with him being asexual, but straight people bars scare Dan. They make him go back to what he was a few years ago, scared of voicing his sexuality. But this was going to be okay. He was with friends. “I take it Amelia and Sophia said yes?”

“Yeah, they’re coming.”

“Okay, I’m down.”

“You can invite lover boy if you want?” Lucas smirks as he jumps off the counter to return to the lounge with his video games.

Dan just hums briefly as he continues what he was doing before Lucas interrupted him.

~~~~~

It doesn’t take Dan too long to tidy up the kitchen and before he knows it, he’s walking back towards his room, picking up his Topshop bag to bring it into his room with him. He throws the bag on his desk chair as he falls back onto his bed. A little rest is due.

He reaches for his phone in his jean pocket and realises he forgot to reply to Phil, so he gets straight on that.

_Dan 11:21am: sorry I was doing chores lmao_

_Phil 11:23am: it is okay! Are u done now?_

_Dan 11:25am: yes_

Biting his lip, he realises it’s a perfect opportunity for him to ask Phil out. Ask him out with him and his friends, that is. He didn’t want to have his hopes too high but he really hopes the answer is what he wants.

_Dan 11:26am: speaking of free, do you wanna come out with us later? A bar?_

He reoccupies his time thinking about what would happen if Phil did come out with them. Maybe he’d sleep over? Maybe he’d share a bed with Dan? The thought of waking up next to Phil really makes Dan’s tummy flutter.

Dan’s train of thought is lost when his phone buzzes out of his hand.

_Phil 11:30am: no I cant sorry :[_

Oh.

Okay, that ruins Dan’s daydream, he assumes.

_Dan 11:30am: that’s fine! Another time?_

_Phil 11:32am: definitely._

Dan tries not to let the rejection from Phil bother him for too long as he lays back and takes a nap for a few hours, thinking he deserves it after the menial tasks he’s done today.

~~~~~

He wakes up to a heavy weight on his stomach and once his eyes have come to terms with waking up, they open and he sees nothing but three fully grown adults lying across him.

“Hi?”

“Good afternoon, sailor,” Sophia laughs as she gets comfortable on Dan’s thighs. “Fancy waking up now?”

“I wonder if it’s anything to do with you three jumping on my body,” Dan mutters in annoyance, rubbing his eyes with fisted hands. He isn’t really annoyed but he’s _just_ woke up, he’s allowed to be a little salty about it.

“Are you going to get ready?” Amelia laughs as she turns her head to rest against his chest, rubbing circles in his sternum.

“I am ready,” Dan argues, trying to push the three annoying bodies off of him.

“You’re meeting lover boy like that?” Lucas teases.

“Oh, Phil’s coming?” Amelia pipes up.

Dan rolls his eyes, “No. He isn’t actually.”

“Oh?”

“Argument with lover boy?”

Dan wants to scream. He loves his friends but they aren’t half annoying.

“No me and Phil are fine.”

“Phil and I,” Sophia corrects him, raising her eyebrows. Curse his friends to have an English language degree.

“Can you guys piss off and let me get ready?” Dan chuckles because rather than continuing to be annoyed, he’s going to admit defeat and laugh along with them. If you can’t beat them, join them kind of thing.

Sophia is the first to get off him, pulling Amelia up with her hand in the process. Leaving Lucas on his lap.

Sophia and Amelia leave his room in a fit of giggles and Dan turns his head to Lucas who is raising his eyebrows at him.

“What?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine?”

Lucas hums as he pushes himself off of Dan’s body, “Okay sure.”

And just like that, Dan is left alone in his room like he thinks he wants.


	5. chapter five

Dan thought that going to a straight person bar was a terrible idea but waking up the next morning, he realises that he actually had fun. He doesn’t remember much due to the amount of alcohol he had downed carelessly to void his emotions but he remembers laughter and dancing. And that makes a decent night out.

He squeezes his eyes shut to get rid of the sunlight beaming through his bedroom window that he carelessly forgot to cover with his curtains before going out. Now he pretty much hates himself for forgetting such a simple thing because his eyes are burning and they aren’t even open yet.

He manages to open his eyes after what feels like hours and can see his phone obsessively vibrating against his bedside table. He chuckles to himself because somehow drunk him remembered to put it on charge last night (or this morning rather).

He reaches for his phone and sees Phil’s name lighting up on the screen. With an anxiety flutter in his stomach, he presses answer call before he thinks too much about it.

“Hi,” he grumbles, head pressing against his pillow.

“Hello, bad night was it?”

“You could say that,” Dan grumbles again, with a slight chuckle in his voice.

“I have just the pick me up for you,” Phil replies and Dan can literally sense the smile on his face in between his words.

“Huh?” Dan hums.

“Get ready. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes for coffee.”

Before Dan can so much as reply that he doesn’t want to leave his bed today, Phil hangs up. He puts a mental reminder in his head to tell Phil that there was no consent involved in this coffee meet up.

He groans as he lifts himself out of his bed reluctantly to get ready for the day. He looks at his clothes in his wardrobe and darts straight to the new tartan trousers he bought the day before, definitely not because he knows Phil likes them on him. He matches it with a plain long sleeve black tee and throws on a random pair of black matte boots from his wardrobe that he hasn’t worn in a while.

He pads his way to his bathroom and brushes his teeth quickly before going into the lounge to see if everyone else was awake.

Low and behold, he sees Sophia and Amelia cuddled up on the sofa together. He sees Amelia’s eyes twitch when he walks in, so he knows she’s awake. Instead of a usual greeting, he would give to any one of his friends, he instead decides on fake gagging with his finger in his mouth to address his appearance in his own living room.

“That’s rude, Daniel,” Amelia whispers with her eyes still closed. “Why are you even up? Go back to sleep!”

“I have plans,” Dan replies.

With this, Amelia opens one of her eyes to peek at Daniel and gasps in the most extra way possible.

“You’re dressed all fancy.”

“Yep.”

“May I assume you’re hanging out with Mr Amazing?” Amelia giggles, shuffling on the sofa so she is wrapped around Sophia’s arms a bit more. In any other occasion, Dan would think this was cute but he isn’t going to allow Amelia to know that.

“Mr Amazing?” Dan splutters quietly, still aware that everyone is sleeping in this flat right now.

“He is a Mr. And you’d say he is amazing, right?”

“I guess.”

“Thank me for his new pet name later,” Amelia smirks.

“Shut up,” Dan laughs as he stands up and he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, curly hair and all. He bites his lip, doubting how cute he looks for a second, “I look okay?”

“If I wasn’t hopelessly in love with Sophia, I’d pounce on you in a heartbeat Danny boy.”

Dan rolls his eyes, “Thanks, Ame.”

He waves his hand in her general direction to head back into his room to grab his phone, noticing that it is around the time that Phil said he’d arrive outside Dan’s. So he puts a light jacket on, knowing it’s not too cold today, and heads outside.

~~~~~

He walks out of the apartment block door and sees Phil standing in front of his car. Phil’s just staring at him with wide eyes and Dan tries desperately to not overthink that. This isn’t a date. Not even in the slightest. If Phil wanted to date Dan, Dan wouldn’t have been rejected for no reason last night so, this is just a strictly friends thing. He gets it, he mutters to himself as he walks down the steps.

“You look really good,” Phil croaks out before he looks to the ground with a splatter of dusty red on his cheekbones.

“Thank you, you don’t look too bad yourself,” Dan replies with a chuckle as he opens his car door and hops into the car. He watches as Phil remains in the same place he greeted him at before he joins Dan back in his car.

“So coffee?” Phil sighs as he starts the car with an unmistakable shaky hand.

“You said it,” Dan teases as he puts his seatbelt on and Phil begins to drive off.

There’s a brief amount of silence in the car, other than the faint radio music being played on in the background. Dan didn’t want to laugh but when he saw the radio station was Smooth FM, he had to let out a small chuckle.

The small chuckle seems to awaken Phil from the silence too as he turns his head quickly to look at Dan and hums in question, before looking back at the road.

“Nothing,” Dan chuckles again. “Just didn’t take you as a Smooth kinda guy,” pointing towards the radio as he feels Phil’s heavy questioning gaze upon him.

“It’s calming,” Phil responds with a smile on his face.

~~~~~

They shortly arrive outside a small dainty coffee shop a little outside of the city centre. Dan couldn’t help but find its floral exterior and equally as flowery interior incredibly beautiful and he’s shocked that he’s never stepped foot in this coffee shop before – Lucas _loves_ independent coffee shops and drags Dan into most of them.

They quickly enter the shop and Phil ushers him to find a table whilst he orders. So Dan aimlessly walks around the coffee shop floor until he finds a secluded round booth right at the back with no one around and Dan couldn’t think of a more perfect place to hang out.

It wasn’t that Dan _hated_ other people, but when he was spending time with people in a definitely-not-a-date situation, he just wanted for it to be him and them. No one else in sight. Maybe this still did very much stem from the internalised homophobia he was still yet to completely shake away from him but for now, a booth at the back of the coffee shop was perfect.

Phil comes back before Dan had much time to awkward scroll down his phone and places two coffees on the table.

“What is this?” Dan asks as he lifts his coffee mug to his nose to give it a sniff.

“Caramel macchiato.”

Dan looks up with a gentle smile on his face, “This is what I always get, did you know that?”

“Nope, it’s what I usually get. I thought I was about to educate you on the best coffee,” Phil laughs.

“I’m already educated,” Dan says with a wink and takes a hearty sip somehow without burning his throat.

Dan escapes his train of thought with someone who he is assuming is a waitress here, walking towards him with cake in hand.

“For Phil?” she asks as she places the cake down. Phil hums and she’s about to turn around when she opens her mouth again, “Have a lovely date, guys.”

Dan blushes and couldn’t bear to look in Phil’s direction for a few seconds but when he does, he sees the similar rose-tinted cheekbones and a smirk on Phil’s lips.

“What?” Dan giggles.

“Nothing!” Phil replies, lifting his hand over his mouth as he giggles right back.

There are a few minutes of silence when Dan occasionally sips his coffee and tries not to look at Phil because how could he look at Phil for more than five seconds without blushing?

He manages to look in Phil’s general direction to the cake in front of them. It’s a simple but gorgeous victoria sponge with a lot of buttercream icing and Dan’s mouth almost waters just looking at it. His eyes wander upwards to see Phil looking directly at him with a smirk on his face, only making Dan blushing more.

Phil coughs and lets out a soft chuckle which makes Dan look back at him once again, only to see Phil grabbing the fork that accompanied the victoria sponge cake.

“Come on then, have some,” Phil mutters, slowly moving the fork into the cake to separate a small mouthful slice. He doesn’t place in on the fork like Dan suspects he would, but instead, he picks up the cake in between his fingers and moves his hand up towards Dan’s mouth.

Dan thinks he’s joking so lets out a soft giggle, but when Phil doesn’t alter his hand movements after hearing Dan’s unbelieved giggle, Dan holds his breath. This is happening. Phil is going to fucking hand feed him.

Dan’s eyes flicker from Phil’s hand to Phil’s face and all he sees is a playful smirk still plastering his face, enough to make Dan gain another splatter of rose blush over his cheekbones.

Phil presses the cake against Dan’s mouth almost instantly reacting to the blush he can clearly see on his face. Dan tries to hold back a gasp once he feels the cake AND Phil’s fingertips against his lips. They feel soft and it makes Dan’s mind wander to what Phil’s fingers would feel like against his own in a hand hold or in .. other places.

He all but literally has to shake his head to remove THOSE thoughts away from his brain because in the middle of a coffee shop is definitely not the place for it.

It’s far too intoxicating though. The touch of Phil’s fingers. The look on Phil’s face. The ideas in Dan’s mind. The neverending tension between them, urging one of them to do something more. Something they both want but each too frightened to go for it.

Slowly, Dan parts his lips at the thought of Phil’s fingers prodding against his plump lips and Phil almost takes it as an invitation to push the rest of the cake into his mouth, not letting his fingers let go of the cake for a second. Dan's stomach turns into a bundle of nerves at the feel of Phil’s fingers inside of his mouth.

Dan could swear he heard Phil groan under his breath once Dan closes his mouth, wrapping his lips lightly around Phil’s lips. He didn't mean to trap Phil's fingers in his mouth too, but that happened and Dan has to own it now. He didn’t do it on purpose and he could easily lie and say he just didn’t want the cake to accidentally fall out of his mouth and not the truth that he wanted to feel Phil in his mouth more securely.

It feels like hours but it’s probably more like a few seconds before Phil is pulling his fingers out of Dan’s mouth. Dan could have sworn he whimpered at the loss but he didn’t think it was loud enough for Phil to hear.

However, that thought somewhat disappears from Dan’s mind when he looks straight at Phil and sees a startled face and a red face. He knows Phil heard the whimper but he’s past caring.

He watches as Phil reaches back down to the cake, tearing a delicate piece off with his fingers as opposed to the fork like last time. He pops the small piece of cake into his mouth, shoving his fingers into his own mouth as far as he did with Dan, never once letting his gaze fall from Dan’s own eyes.

Dan swallows in a panic. There was no way Phil was _doing this_ in a fucking public place but here they were. Dan’s eyes leave Phil’s for a second to his lips, where he saw another fucking smirk. Dan has to bite back a laugh because he knew Phil’s fully aware of what he’s doing to Dan.

Dan’s heart’s racing and he has to look away before he did something far too impulsive. Dan was never someone for public displays of affection but he’d be damned if he didn’t stop himself, he would have bent over the table himself and kissed him.

“So,” Phil chuckles, running his hand through his hair, acting like he’s the one flustered. “How’s the coffee?”

Dan almost cackles. Almost cackles because Phil is being so casual after _that_.

“It’s good coffee.”

“Say thank you, Phil,” Phil teases as he picks up his own to take a gulp.

“I’m not saying thank you when I have this coffee every time I leave the house,” Dan splutters out a laugh.

Phil raises his eyebrows in a mock annoyance and laughs along with Dan.

~~~~~

_Phil 3:03pm: thank u for coming with me today_

_Dan 3:05pm: it's okay, I needed coffee so I should thank u!_

_Phil 3:07pm: I cant wait to take u on another date_

Dan’s heart stops reading the text. Like, he thought it was a date but he wasn’t about to say it to Phil, but now Phil is happily saying it like it was obvious this entire time, _like_ Dan didn’t have the inner turmoil getting ready _and_ the entire time they were in the coffee shop because he was unsure.

_Dan 3:08pm: another date ??_

_Phil 3:09pm: yes that was a date right ???_

_Dan 3:09pm: u idiot I mean you want to go on another one with me, wow_

_Phil 3:10pm: of course, ur pretty cute Daniel_

_Phil 3:10pm: we’ve been through this_

Dan’s heart swells when he reads the texts, again and again. Phil thinks he’s cute. Phil, the cutest person Dan thinks he’s ever laid his eyes on, thinks he’s cute.

_Dan 3:11pm: hm I don’t think we have_

_Dan 3:11pm: care to enlighten me?_

Dan smirks as he puts his phone down on his desk but it doesn’t take long before his phone is buzzing again and he grabs it back. Seeing Phil’s name on the caller ID makes butterflies swirl around his tummy but he presses answer anyway.

“Hello?”

“You’re such a tease, Howell.”

“Hm, am I?” Dan giggles, covering his mouth with his hand even though no one can see his goofy smile.

“Yes,” Phil sighs. “You know you’re cute.”

“I don’t actually,” Dan teases, giggling into his hand some more.

“Well, I know you’re cute.”

“How?”

“I’d say,” Phil pauses and Dan hears some shuffling on the other end of the phone. “I’d say you look particularly cute with my fingers in your mouth.”

Dan sputters out a small hearty laugh, “Wow.”

“What?” Phil laughs along with him. “You did.”

“You can’t just say that,” Dan replies.

“I just did.”

“Can’t believe you said that in front of all these people.”

“Dan, it’s literally just us on the phone,” Phil deadpans his expression, letting out a laugh at the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell ive recently watched a rom-com where something similar to the cake scene happens ?? i watched it and i was like damn im planning on making dnp go on a coffee date so this is the perfect time to make it somewhat smutty ;)


	6. chapter six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for the talk of aids/hiv. idk if thats a trigger for anyone but like i mention it in a class setting and i didnt wanna risk it <3

Free periods never fail to annoy Dan. He HAS to be in at the same time as the students because that’s the rules but he doesn’t have any classes to assist until after lunchtime so what does he have to do in that time?

Strictly speaking, he _knows_ he could catch up on some preparatory study work for another class. He could get well ahead of the work he has to do for tomorrow’s lessons. He could do a bit of light reading. But no, instead he decides to sit in the staffroom scrolling through Tumblr.

He gives himself maybe ten minutes tops of endlessly scrolling through pictures of cats and a few porn gifs that he isn’t even sure how they got they because he doesn't follow any porn blogs before someone comes barging through the staffroom door.

“-and this is the staffroom,” The man who comes barging through the door exclaims, raising his hands above his head to dramatise the entrance. Once the man turns around, Dan figures out the man who interrupted his precious Tumblr scrolling time was, in fact, the head teacher of the school, Mr Jones. Mr Jones was a generic white man if Dan ever saw one but he seemed harmless enough. “Ah, Daniel. Just the guy I was looking to see!”

Huh? Dan swallows as he realises his free period time actually has plans today. “Hi Mr Jones, what can I do for you?”

Mr Jones laughs and pats Dan on his back, far too aggressive Dan thinks but maybe he’s just too weak for a straight white man’s hand. His hand pushes Dan forward until he’s greeted with a small petite looking girl with bright purple hair and if Dan’s eyes served him well, a few piercings that clearly had clear studs in, in an attempt to hide them.

“This is Rosa. She’s new and I was wondering if she could just shadow you for today so she can find her feet here?”

Dan didn’t expect that, but he nods and agrees anyway. “Oh yeah, of course, that’s more than fine!”

“Good,” Mr Jones slaps the back of Dan again and this time Dan is definitely sure that was far too hard for a generic lad thing.

Mr Jones leaves just as quickly as he came and Dan’s left in the staffroom with a new teaching assistant, Rosa.

“Hi,” Dan says awkwardly, playing with the hem of his shirt.

Rosa laughs, walking to sit down right where Dan was actually sitting before he was interrupted. “How’s your back?”

Oh. Right. Maybe Mr Jones is heavy handed with everyone.

Dan laughs, awkwardly rubbing his back. He eventually follows and sits down across from Rosa in a spare seat, putting his feet on the coffee table as he relaxes. He looks up to find Rosa studying him.

He frowns his facial features before speaking, “What?”

“Nothing!”

“Clearly something.”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“Oh okay,” Dan mutters, reaching to grab his phone to return to Tumblr.

“You’re not much of a talker are you, Daniel?” Rosa giggles, as he mimics Dan’s posture opposite him, placing her feet on the table so close to Dan’s that they rub against his shoes when she wiggles them.

“You were the one who was staring at me and when I questioned you, you said nothing was up!” Dan argues back, rolling his eyes as he does so.

“Wow someone’s aggressive today,” Rosa teases as she knocks her feet against Dan’s in a playful way. “It makes you look cuter than usual.”

“Than usual?” Dan raises his eyebrows.

“Don’t worry I’m not a stalker,” Rosa laughs as she raises her hands up in the air. “I just mean you shouting makes you look cuter than before when you were an awkward mess.”

“I wasn’t awkward!”

“When Jones slapped your back, you literally looked like he shit in the hands he slapped you with,” Rosa laughs louder.

“Weird way to put it, but I did not!” Dan whines.

“Whining doesn’t make you look cute, though Dan.”

“Quit calling me cute.”

“But you ar-“

“Stooooooppppppp,” Dan whines again, releasing a loud cackle from Rosa on the other side of the table. He nudges his foot to gently hit hers in another attempt to get her to stop.

Just to save the day, Dan’s phone buzzes so he makes a grab for it and opens his text.

_Phil 10:32am: hi I bought a new jacket_

_Phil 10:32am: and I thought you were the appropriate person to send this to_

_Phil 10:33am: [img.0910.1030.jpeg]_

Dan couldn’t even attempt to lie in his own head because that photo of Phil took his breath away. He knew Phil looked absolutely beautiful wearing whatever the fuck he wanted. Phil could wear a bin bag and Dan would still be floored. But there was something about Phil in red that made Dan turn equally as red.

“Oooo, who’s made you turn into a tomato?” Rosa teases, making grabby hands towards Dan’s phone to take a look.

Dan shakes his head to bring himself back into the real world, “N-no one. It’s nothing.”

Dan types out a quick reply to Phil saying exactly how he feels about the jacket before throwing his phone back into his trouser pocket, away from Rosa. Hopefully, Rosa wouldn’t go there to try and retrieve it.

“Are you seeing someone, Mr Howell?” Rosa continues to tease, winking when she catches Dan’s annoyed gaze.

“Yes and no?”

“That’s a question?”

Dan hums because truly thinking about it, is he seeing someone? He doesn’t know. What’s the definition of seeing someone.

Dan sighs, “I’m kinda seeing someone? But it’s been like one proper date so I don’t know where we stand currently?”

“How do YOU feel?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you like them?” Rosa adds.

“Y-yeah, they are – Phil is great. You know? I really wanna make a go of it,” Dan replies, trying not to pay attention to the reaction Rosa gave when he name drops a man’s name.

“Well if you like him and really want to do something, then I say you’re seeing each other?” Rosa explains, shuffling in her seat to get comfortable. “I’m sure you wouldn’t get the wrong message and get your hopes up about that.”

Dan doesn’t fail to notice how she didn’t even stutter referring to Dan’s date as a man, being she was okay with him being kind of gay.

“Yeah,” Dan says as he bites his lip, thinking about whether it’s the best thing to say what he wants to say next. “I mean, we almost kissed the other day?”

“What?”

“Yeah, I think so?”

“You think so?”

“We had like, a moment?”

“A moment?” Rosa raises her eyebrows and wiggles them towards Dan.

“Yeah?”

“You aren’t sure?”

“No?”

“Run it past me, Howell.”

Dan sighs as if informing Rosa on his antics with a boy was the end of the world. It wasn’t, in theory, he wanted to speak to about Phil for as long as he could, with whoever wanted to listen. So he did. He quickly runs through what happened before his friend, Amelia, walked into his room – the entire time not bothering to look at Rosa to see her reaction, he didn’t want to hear that he was overreacting.

“And you think that wasn’t a moment?” Rosa teases as she kicks Dan in the leg again, something Dan was going to have to tell her to STOP doing if he didn’t want a bruise showing up on his calf.

“Shut up,” Dan kicks her back before standing up because he literally cannot stand any more kicking between the two of them. He pads his way to the kitchen counter to make another coffee before turning around to rest on the counter to look at Rosa.

“We went on a date Sunday morning – the Sunday just gone – and there was another, uh, moment.”

Rosa rolls her eyes at this, hinting for Dan to continue and to expand with the twist of her wrist.

“He bought us a slice of cake to share,” Dan explains, jumping up onto the staff room kitchen counter to get comfortable as opposed to leaning against it. He grabs his fresh mug of coffee and holds it in two hands, hiding his blushing face slightly. “He cut the cake with a fork and then proceeded to feed me it.”

“With the fork?”

Dan knows his face is about as red as a tomato so he didn’t really _have_ to answer the question because Rosa would probably have guessed, “His hand.”

“In the middle of a coffee shop?! Holy fuck, Dan.”

“I know,” Dan blushes, hiding his face with the warm mug again.

“He fancies the pants off of you,” Rosa says casually as she stands up to walk over to the coffee maker next to Dan.

“You think?”

“Daniel, honey. He put his fingers in your mouth in the middle of a coffee shop. Nothing about that screams a lack of interest, don’t you think?”

“Okay, okay,” Dan closes his eyes; partially in disbelief that he had this conversation with someone he literally just met, but also because there’s truth to her words.

~~~~~~

Dan’s last class of the day is with Mr Clarkson and a bunch of year eleven’s. They are studying American history this term which honestly, is not Dan’s cup of tea but he’s managing to learn bits and bobs throughout his free time so he isn’t completely dumbfounded when a student asks him a question about the founding fathers of the United States.

Dan stands near the back and he watches the abundance of hormonal teenagers walking into the classroom, taking their assigned seats that they sit in every lesson. Dan doesn’t envy them, at all actually. He doesn’t regret wanting his high school career to finish quickly and he definitely doesn’t miss it. All of the sweaty hormonal teenage boys who easily use slurs like they’re going out of fashion (even though they definitely should be out of fashion by now).

“This week we’re going to be learning about the AIDS epidemic in 1980s America,” Mr Clarkson exclaims, raising his arms in the air like it’s the most exciting topic existing. Dan can’t help but muffle a laugh.

“Now who can tell me what the state of American politics was in the eighties?” He looks around the room and eventually points to Amy, a nice girl who Dan sometimes helps during the week in the extra assistance classes. “Yes, Amy?”

“There was a rise of conservatism and Ronald Reagan was president.”

“Correct!” Mr Clarkson practically shouts, jumping Dan out of his skin slightly. “What party was he?”

“Republican!” Amy continues, matching Mr Clarkson’s excitement and Dan can’t help but smile. He started working here with Amy being a timid girl who didn’t want to speak out in class in fear of getting things wrong, but here she is putting her hand up.

“Brilliant!”

Dan tunes himself out when Mr Clarkson speaks to the rest of the class about what America was like in the 1980s. Dan isn’t interested in this area of history, he tells himself, it’s okay to zone out. So he does and the next moment he looks at the presentation board, he sees something that he may want to keep interested in.

“Okay so in 1980s America, there was a rise in the infection of HIV and AIDS. It found its way into America in the early sixties but the outbreak dramatised much later. Can anyone tell me what they think this awful disease is?”

A few hands go up and Dan doesn’t fair to ignore the sniggers that come from the back group of lads. Mr Clarkson picks on a shy, timid girl at the front who has her hands up and smiles.

“Isn’t it an immune system disease that’s caused by HIV?” Katherine bites her lip when she answers.

“You’re right, Katherine!” Mr Clarkson offers her a genuinely warm smile and looks away to the rest of the class. “AIDS is a disease that affects the way our bodies fight off infections and other diseases. A person suffering is very vulnerable to cancer and other life-threatening infections like pneumonia.”

Dan can’t help but zone out again. He tries to love all history but learning about the AIDS epidemic in America during the eighties wasn’t on his top ten favourite history moments during university. He chose to do a general history degree instead of homing in on the classical period because he thought it would give him a safety net just in case he didn’t enjoy ancient history as much as he thought. He didn’t know it would go the other way around.

“-transmitted through body fluids in some very r rated ways,” Mr Clarkson chuckles. “It is mostly spread through unprotected sex but that’s not the only way you can contract it.”

“Yeah, sir. Isn’t it a disease for gay people?”

“Actually no! Whilst a lot of people who get infected with HIV are gay and bisexual men, it’s not always the cas-“ Mr Clarkson is cut off by the same boy at the back of the classroom laughing and opening his mouth again. Dan feels all of his body hairs lift up out of fear.

“But it is mostly gay people, innit sir?”

“No, James. That’s actually a particularly problematic thing to continue saying so if you could stop please,” Mr Clarkson mutters calmly as he turns to the board and changes the slide, moving onto how the stigma in America affected a whole bunch of people including LGBTQ+ people.

Dan is grateful because the casual homophobia was genuinely starting to rile him up and he was definitely going to try and keep this job.

It wasn’t like homophobia bothered him _much_ anymore because it was simply something he just didn’t agree with. He didn’t think any of the things he’s heard over the years since expressing himself at high school and during sixth form but it still hurt to hear people in this generation saying that stuff.

Luckily, halfway through the class, Mr Clarkson waddles over and asks Dan to do some more printing for his next class and this time he happily accepts. He doesn’t mind leaving this class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this chapter kinda lacks phil but i wanted to do a chapter building on dan's job and his friendships there :) let me know if you like this chapter or not, if you think it's shit i wont do it again unless its 1000% necessary lmao 
> 
> ^^ listen im a history uni student. i wanted to write some form of history classes in this fic, especially if i was making dan a history teacher


	7. chapter seven

The day at work for Dan luckily ends quicker than it started and he all but literally runs out of the classroom to make his way home.

He pushes his earphones into his ears and presses play on his Spotify playlist that is mostly 2014 emo bands but he isn’t going to admit that to anyone. He walks through crowds and crowds of teenagers who clearly are taking their time to walk home, much like how Dan was in high school, but it’s definitely not Dan now.

Dan just wants to get home and wrap himself under a duvet and maybe think about Phil for a huge portion of his evening. Nothing much, just a casual night in for Dan.

He eventually separates himself from all of the school kids as he turns left down a quiet, short road. He always walks this way home because it’s much quicker than walking the main roads but it is horrifically scarier. Dan has to walk past people who he is definitely sure are constructing a drug deal, several homeless people who he does feel sorry for but he never carries money to and from school because what is there to buy? Maybe he should start, for this walk home specifically.

He is about halfway when a car drives past, but not at a usual speed that cars would drive down this road. It’s fine, Dan thinks, the one time he actually _wants_ to get home and not interact with anyone, in particular, he’s going to get kidnapped. He continues walking anyway, trying to ignore the fact the car has slowed down so it’s following Dan.

A few moments pass at this same situation before Dan’s entire body is forcibly jumping out of his skin due to a loud voice coming from behind him. He turns around, realising that it was a car horn, and is ready to shout at whatever idiot just gave him the fright of his lif-

Oh.

It’s Phil?

Maybe he’s changed his mind on not wanting to interact with anybody.

“Phil?”

“That’s me,” Phil offers him a toothy grin in response.

“Did you really have to blast your horn instead of just shouting my name? Give a lad a heart attack!”

“You didn’t turn around so you left me no choice,” Phil chuckles, still not taking his eyes off of Dan.

“Well, hello.”

“Hi,” Phil smirks after he waits a couple of seconds for Dan to calm down. “Get in.”

“Is this a polite kidnapping?”

“No,” Phil giggles as he wraps his hand around the gear stick, still keeping his eyes locked on Dan’s brown ones. It’s funny because the lighting in Phil’s car isn’t perfect but Dan can still make out every single colour in Phil’s orbs. “But get it, _please_.”

Dan rolls his eyes as he opens the car door and sits in the passenger seat.

“I wanted to hang out.”

“And you couldn’t just text me like a normal person?”

“Well that would ruin the surprise wouldn’t it Daniel?”

“Surprise?”

“The surprise of having my blessed company,” Phil chuckles.

~~~~~

They make it back to Dan’s in one piece, no more car horn sounds from Phil thankfully. Dan has to hide the blush throughout the drive home but if Phil asks, he has a whole excuse about how cold it is planned. If Phil asks, Dan always gets this cold walking home and he still hasn’t brought an appropriate winter coat or a scarf.

Phil doesn’t ask.

They both run up the steps towards Dan’s front door and Phil giggles when Dan struggles to unlock the door. It’s not his fault he’s so flustered, it’s definitely Phil’s fault.

“Let me do it,” Phil giggles as he takes a couple of steps into Dan’s personal space. He reaches his hand forward to take the keys from Dan’s hand, taking his time about it. He wraps his fingers around the keys, careful to stroke the palm of Dan’s hand as he does so. The touch sends shivers down Dan’s spine and he wants to laugh about how pathetic he is being.

Phil’s fingertips literally just graze Dan’s skin and he has to hold his lips shut so he doesn’t allow a whimper to escape.

Phil’s hands leave Dan’s and so does the keys. Dan tries not to miss the touch too much.

They make it in somehow in one piece, no thanks to Dan’s shaky hand, and push off their jackets and shoes and place them in their respective places. It’s funny how Phil just knows where to put his things, placing them on Dan’s coat hooks and on Dan’s shelf on the shoe rack. Dan has to fight off commenting on it.

Dan doesn’t hesitate to walk straight into his room this time, Phil obviously following closely behind. He didn’t want to risk bumping into anyone today, last time they were at Dan’s was god awful and that is definitely not going to happen again.

Dan isn’t hoping for anything in particular but if Amelia is here, he didn’t want to find out.

“You’ve cleaned,” Phil says, breaking the otherwise comfortable silence that they had.

Dan turns around to see Phil with a smirk on his face so he knows Phil is teasing.

“Thought you wouldn’t want to come into my bedroom if it looked like a bombs hit it,” Dan replies, chuckling slightly as he sits on the edge of his bed to watch Phil walking around.

Phil’s already been in his room and explored but that isn’t stopping him from doing it again. He stops in front of the pride flag yet again and smiles warmly towards it, which only warms Dan’s heart more.

“What? You’re gay?” Phil nods towards the pride flag with a gasp and for a second, Dan doesn’t notice the humour in his voice so he frowns, turning around to the pride flag and darting straight back to Phil in confusion. He sees the smirk places along his face and the confusion disappears.

“Oh yeah, I just hang out in gay bars for the experience.”

“Thought so.”

Phil eventually joins Dan with sitting on his bed but he doesn’t sit for long, deciding to lie backwards onto Dan’s pillows and cocking his legs up to rest on the bed. Dan matches him but doesn’t keep the same amount of distance as last time, now he knows he doesn’t really need to.

Obviously, he doesn’t completely know how Phil feels about him but the near enough kiss is _something_ and that’s enough for Dan to know for now.

“It’s statistically irregular for this many gay people to be under one roof,” Phil comments, moving his one arm behind his head to rest on. Dan turns his head slightly, tempting to mimic Phil’s actions but establishing that looking at Phil would be so much nicer and definitely worth the bad neck pain he’ll get later.

“I mean there’s only me and Lucas, and he’s not gay. So just me,” Dan laughs.

“Wait? It’s just you and Lucas who live here?”

“Yep.”

“I thought Amelia and Sophia did too?”

“They like to _think_ they live here,” Dan rolls his eyes. “They live about ten minutes away but they spend so much time here.”

“The way Amelia acted when I was here last made it seem like this is her apartment.”

Dan didn’t expect last time they hung out to be brought up so soon but here it is. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that Phil is going to automatically bring up the almost kiss and try anything again but Dan can dream.

“Yeah I was so mad, she always acts like that,” Dan comments, turning onto his side to properly face Phil. He tries not to feel hurt when Phil doesn’t join him but he looks cute and comfortable so Dan lets it slide.

“So it happens a lot? You bringing cute guys back from bars?” Phil teases as he turns to mimic Dan’s position, and Dan looks right into Phil’s eyes. It should be impossible for someone’s eyes to be **that** beautiful and stunning. The mixture of the blue, green and grey are just mesmerising and Dan cannot look away until he hears what Phil says and wants to take the opportunity to mock him.

“I haven’t done that yet,” Dan winks, well tries to. He’s not very good at it so it probably comes out as more of an awkward blink with one eyelid being much slower than the other.

“Rude,” Phil pushes Dan backwards with his hands and groans, even though no annoyance lets itself slip through his tone and his actions. Dan throws his head back and cackles in response.

“Just honest.”

“You’re horrible.”

“Noted,” Dan tilts his head and smirks and tries not to feel the butterflies when Phil smiles right back at him. But he does feel them, he definitely feels them. He can’t feel anything other than the nervousness in his tummy, the thumping of his own heart that he is pretty sure is so loud that Phil can hear it too and the literal sound of his brain turning to mush at the fucking sight of Phil staring right back at him.

Dan’s eyes find Phil’s beautiful ones. He’s never wanted to kiss someone more but he doesn’t know whether he can. Like sure, they ALMOST kissed the last time they properly hung out but the way Phil reacted, doesn’t really fill Dan with any confidence.

Dan takes in a shaky breath and the sound almost echoes the room, Dan is sure. It echoes around Dan’s head, reminding him that they are THIS close to one another and this close to each other’s faces, and lips.

Dan closes his eyes to regulate his breathing and as soon as he opens them, he sees Phil offer a shy but still genuine smile as he bites his lip and closes the gap between them. Dan’s back falls backwards onto the bed and Phil’s mouth meets his, following him backwards onto the bed too. Dan is sure that he could die now and wouldn’t feel a thing but this kiss.

Phil is pressing against him head to toe and Dan is helpless, trapped underneath Phil but deep down he doesn’t think he minds all that much. What could be wrong with feeling trapped underneath a person when it’s Phil?

Alas, as quickly as this kiss began is just as quick as it ends. Phil pulls away, lingering slightly just in front of Dan with parted lips and Dan just takes him in. He feels Phil’s hitched breath on his lips and that doesn’t help anything. He doesn’t open his eyes again for what feels like hours but when he does, Phil is still hovering above him looking like he is still hungry for more, eyes losing their colour to be replaced with blackness.

But something stops him, and Phil withdraws properly, falling backwards onto the bed next to Dan. Dan tries to calm down and stifle the whining sounds that threaten to escape his lips because he isn’t about to sulk after their first kiss.

Dan turns his head to the side and is surprised to still Phil staring right back at him, matching his position and smiling. Dan smiles back, for what it’s worth, but he feels like his mind is completely flying away from his body so he isn’t quite sure if you could class this as a smile.

“You good?”

“Great,” Dan croaks out somehow, he isn’t sure.

Phil chuckles as he runs his hand through his hair and Dan could have sworn that did the opposite of calm him down.

“Okay,” Phil moves his hand from his hair and slowly trails it down to the duvet alongside Dan’s. He smirks as he intertwines their fingers and squeezes.

Okay, Dan is definitely fucked.

~~~~~

They sit like that for a while, almost doing nothing in particular other than occasionally sharing glances at each other and holding each other’s hand. Eventually, they do chat with each other but it’s about nothing in particular. They talk about the new Riverdale episode that they both happen to watch, how Dan absolutely adores dogs and wants at least twelve one day and they definitely don’t mention the situation they are in.

“I really don’t want to, but I should get going,” Phil whines as he shuffles closer to Dan. He literally just said he needs to go but proceeds to invade any remaining space between them, wrapping his arm around Dan’s waist and hiding his head in the crook of Dan’s neck.

Dan definitely doesn’t want to overthink this but he’s freaking out. How has this happened? He’s been single for years and now he somehow has this beautiful boy in his bed and he potentially feels the exact same way about Dan as Dan does with him. He wraps his arms around Phil’s back anyway.

“We can see each other soon?” Dan offers, knowing that he doesn’t want Phil to leave either but the next best thing is in the next few days if Phil can.

Phil groans, pulling away from Dan’s grip and jumping off of Dan’s bed. Dan watches him as he stands up and begins to walk towards the door.

“Are you gonna be an idiot and not see me out?” Phil grins as he turns around to see that Dan hasn’t moved from the position he left him in. Dan shakes his head as he gets up, reluctantly, because somehow in his head he thinks if he doesn’t get up Phil won’t leave.

They walk out of Dan’s room and Dan hears the faint sounds of chatting coming from the lounge but he chooses to ignore it. If Phil can hear it too then he doesn’t comment on it either, luckily.

“I’ll see you soon,” Phil whispers, sounding like a statement rather than a question. He wraps his arms around Dan’s waist and pulls him closer. Dan could get used to this.

“Definitely, I’ll be here.”

“Good,” Phil replies as he closes the gap and hugs Dan. Dan takes a few seconds to realise what’s going on but he melts into the embrace, fully taking Phil in. They stand like this for a few moments until the noise from the lounge gets louder and Phil pulls away.

Dan bites his lip in an attempt to not whine at the loss of touch.

“Goodbye, Dan.”

“Goodbye, Phil,” Dan replies, smiling warmly at Phil. He opens the front door and watches as Phil steps out and jog down the steps. Phil turns around and offers a small wave and Dan knows at this moment he is _definitely_ fucked.

He watches still until Phil is out of his eyesight and finally closes the door behind him.

“Dan?” He hears screaming from the lounge and he rolls his eyes as he ignores it anyway and walks back into his bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope yall had a lovely week :) im going to london tomorrow for cornelia's show on tuesday im vvvv excited


	8. chapter eight

Dan loves the park. He loves sitting on a blanket on a slightly warm autumnal day with a few snacks, chatting away to his friends. Children playing tag, running around with no purpose in particular. A lot of dogs, but nowhere near enough, chasing them and playing fetch. Usually, he comes here for walks by himself when he needs to clear his head but lately; he’s asked people to join him.

He doesn’t hate being in people’s company anymore. When he moved to Manchester, he absolutely hated making friends and really only wanted to be friends with Lucas, because they’d know each other that long. Lucas knew the moods Dan often gets in and didn’t judge him when he wanted to be alone. After a couple of years, after he met Amelia at LGBTQ+ group therapy that he was enrolled in and his mental health improved a lot, and suddenly he didn’t need to be alone anymore. The comfort he once found with being alone, he found with being with people.

He’s sat on a blanket underneath one of the very few trees in the park that has any leaves left. The sun is beaming through the orange and red leaves scattering a golden light across his face. He thinks he could get used to this.

“So,” Sophia mutters as she finishes eating a bite of her sandwich and places it down on the paper plate in front of her. “Any gossip? I haven’t been around in a while.”

“Nothing, really.”

“Bullshit, I’ve missed something.”

Dan shrugs. There’s a lot she’s missed but Dan doesn’t really know what to say. That he and Phil went on a date and Dan sucked his fingers in the middle of a coffee shop? That’s nothing really to talk about in the middle of a park with children running around.

“How’s your love life, Dan?” Sophia teases, kicking Dan lightly in the shin. Before Dan can so much as open his mouth to reply, he hears Amelia snort right next to him, so he decides to close his mouth and not mutter a word.

“What?” Sophia turns to Amelia, tilting her head and flitting her eyes between Amelia and Dan.

“Dan’s love life is fantastic right now,” Amelia laughs.

“Alright, actually shut up,” Dan turns to Amelia and playfully slaps her leg in annoyance. He knows she means well but she doesn’t half rub him up the wrong way.

“Does Daniel have a _boyfriend_?”

“Definitely n-“

“I think he would like to,” Amelia butts in.

“Okay, I would. Phil is nice,” Dan replies, smirking at Amelia because he knows that she’s won and she wanted him to speak about it.

“Phil?”

“Yep.”

“Tell me about Phil?”

Dan groans softly because he isn’t actually annoyed, he does want to speak about Phil.

“I met him at the bar we went to a few weeks ago and he gave me his number and we’ve just been hanging out casually.”

“They went on a date.”

“Wha? A _date_?!” Sophia all but literally screams which makes Dan laugh. His friends really do care about his love life.

“Yeah, uh, we went to a coffee shop after we all went out to that straight person bar.”

“Right?”

“Yep.”

“Well that sounds cute, have you fucked each other yet?”

Dan sputters on the bottle of water he was attempting to drink because Sophia really has no filter. He wipes his mouth as he replies, “No – Jesus Christ – but we’ve, uh, kissed.”

He genuinely didn’t think that would be such a big deal but apparently, it is, especially when he turns around to see Amelia’s mouth wide open in shock and Sophia trying to hold back a laugh.

“Wha-“

“You have kissed him!?”

“I just said that didn’t i?”

“Jesus, who are you and what have you done with Dan?” Amelia shuffles over and places the back of her hand on Dan’s forehead to check his temperature.

“I have kissed people,” Dan says as he bats her hand away from his head whilst chuckling.

“Yeah but that’s not _our_ Dan,” Amelia retorts, smirking.

“I don’t even wanna know what that means.”

“Yeah,” Amelia chuckles. “I don’t know why I said it, I don’t know what I meant by it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Sophia continues to ask questions about Phil to Dan and Dan answers because he truly doesn’t hate talking about Phil. He mentions about how Phil likes the same bands as Dan does and how Phil sucks at Mario Kart even though he tells him that he’s a brilliant gamer. He talks about how Phil’s favourite coffee is a caramel macchiato and Amelia and Sophia giggle in shock because that’s Dan’s favourite drink too.

Dan doesn’t really mind the fact he spends the best part of an hour gushing over Phil and both Sophia and Amelia don’t seem to mind either.

“I’m happy for you, Dan.”

Dan hums in response and Amelia takes that as him asking why so she expands.

“It’s just, since I met you, you’ve grown so much. It literally warms my heart that you’ve done from a heavily depressed emo guy who was scared of his sexuality even though he would never admit it – don’t question me I know that’s true Dan – to this seemingly happy still emo guy who OWNS his sexuality. As you should.”

“T-thank you?”

“You don’t need to thank me, I’m just glad I could be here to watch that glow up,” Amelia smiles as she reaches and grabs Dan’s hand with her own and squeezes his hand for support.

“I’m glad you are here too, Ame.”

“So do you think this is a thing to stay then, Dan?” Sophia raises her eyebrows as she takes another bite of her sandwich.

“I hope so,” Dan blushes, looking away from his friends for a second so they couldn’t see.

He really hopes it lasts. He hasn’t felt any romantic attraction towards anyone for a while and now he feels that with Phil. He doesn’t want it to go anywhere anytime soon.

Dan takes in his surroundings. The sun is kind of setting now so it’s getting darker but not dark enough to leave the park yet. He wants to stay here for a while longer, just basking in the fresh air around him.

He notices a rather large fluffy dog running around in the distance so he decides to watch for a while, hoping that it’s not creepy. The dog runs up and down the path, like it’s on some sort of mission and Dan’s all for it. It’s possibly the cutest thing he’s seen in a while, besides Phil after they kissed of course. He doesn’t think he could get that thought out of his head, not until it’s replaced with more r rated images of Phil.

In his thought process, his eyes zoned out for a second and upon his attempts to refocus them, his heart drops. He knows it shouldn’t but it does anyway.

In the much closer distance, much closer to him than the cute dog was, is Phil. But he isn’t alone. He’s walking the path towards him with another guy and Dan doesn’t know who that guy is. He knows he has no right to be jealous or think the worst because Phil doesn’t seem like the type but he feels it anyway. He feels the sweat on his brow get worse as Phil comes closer.

It doesn’t seem like Phil has noticed and Dan tries not to be annoyed at the fact that it’s because he’s too busy laughing and looking at the other guy.

Dan has never been a self-conscious lad before. He’s quite happy with his appearance but he suddenly realises that this guy is conventionally way more attractive than he is, of course, Phil is trying to find someone better, why wouldn’t he? The guy has bleach blond hair tied up in a messy bun on the top of his head and a perfectly chiselled jawline. Wow.

Unfortunately for Dan, he doesn’t have much time to wallow in self-pity because before he knows it, Phil is walking towards him and the look on his face, all flustered, really does suggest he’s seen Dan. Dan tries to ignore him and get distracted with his sandwich but Phil has other plans.

“Dan?”

Dan looks up and hums, “Oh, hi Phil.”

Dan feels Sophia and Amelia’s eyes burning into his temples but he chooses to ignore it for now, “How are you, uh, doing?”

“I’m good. Good,” Phil mutters a reply, clearly uncomfortable, playing with the hem of his shirt out of nerves. Dan raises his eyebrows towards Phil’s friend and Phil returns them to Dan but doesn’t question it. “This is Samuel. My, uh, friend.”

“Hi,” Samuel butts in, reaching out his hand to shake everyone’s, including Dan’s.

“Hello,” Dan replies through gritted teeth, not looking away from Phil’s face for a second. He finds nothing but discomfort and honestly, Dan would be lying if he didn’t find satisfaction in it. He doesn’t believe that Phil would be _that_ person to two time but he hasn’t known Phil all that long, so he couldn’t be sure.

“We best be going anyway, I’ll text you later, Dan?” Phil says but it sounds more like a question. Dan hates that.

“Yeah, sure,” Dan tries to smile back up at Phil but with the sun setting it comes out more or less strained, and with the situation it doesn’t meet his eyes anyway.

“Bye.”

“See ya.”

Once Phil is a comfortable enough distance away from them, Amelia snaps her head around incredibly quickly to look at Dan, “Who is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you a bit curious? They looked close.”

“I trust him,” Dan lies through his teeth. Could he? Could he really?

“I hope you have no reason to regret that,” Sophia mutters as she rests her hand on Dan’s thigh and rubs circles as a form of comfort, before moving away and continuing her sandwich.

Sophia and Amelia start talking about some issue at Sophia’s work and Dan just zones out. He has no reason to trust Phil. And Phil definitely has no reason to NOT see other people. They’ve been on one date and kissed once, that’s not really enough to be exclusive.

Dan sighs as he lies back on the blanket underneath him and stares up at the sky. It’s probably time to go soon, and Dan doesn’t hate that. He just wants to walk home in silence and ignore everyone for a while. Maybe he developed feelings far too quickly and Phil felt nothing.

Maybe that’s it.

“We should get going,” Sophia says as she stands up, knocking Dan out of his stream of thoughts before he began spiralling. “Are you good to go?”

“Dan?”

Dan shoots his head up, “Wha-? Yeah, I’m good.”

He stands up and begins shoving his belongings into his rucksack as quickly as he could because he saw that Sophia had already packed all their stuff up. He is just about to put his back onto his back and follow them home when he hears someone running towards home.

He looks up and sees a slightly flustered Phil approaching him, and all he feels is butterflies.

“Hi.”

“Hello, I couldn’t leave like that. I wanted to say hello properly.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah?” Phil tilts his head and frowns, looking at Dan but Dan doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Where’s your friend?”

“What?” Phil frowns some more before the realisation hits him. “Oh, Samuel? He had to go.”

“Lucky him,” Dan whispers under his breath, quiet enough that he didn’t think Phil could hear but when Dan looks up to finally gaze at Phil, it’s clear Phil heard from the deepening frown appearing on his face.

“Is everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Dan hums as he finally shoves his backpack onto his back and sees that Sophia and Amelia are just standing there watching. “You two can continue, I’ll catch you up.”

“Okay, love,” Sophia responds with a shy smile. “We won’t tread far.”

“Okay.”

“Dan…”

“It’s fine we weren’t exclusive or anythin-“

“Dan.”

“I didn’t expect to see you with another guy, that’s all.”

“Dan!” Phil says as he grabs Dan’s hands with his own, trying to get Dan from talking.

“What, Phil?” Dan whines, looking down at their intertwined hands in front of him.

“You don’t understand,” Phil begins to speak but trails off at the end. Dan looks up and gains eye contact, for the first time since Phil left with Samuel.

“I don’t?”

“Let me explain, please. I understand how it looks, just let me explain and then you can form an opinion of your own about it,” Phil pleads, squeezing his hand tighter around Dan’s, making him look down at them again.

“Yeah,” Dan whispers. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell i tried to redeem amelia in this chapter lmao ?? yall said amelia was MEAN and i didnt mean that so im trying to make her nice
> 
> also it sounds ANGSTY but its not i promise :) youll find out next week uwu


	9. chapter nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not posting yesterday. it was a family day and i didnt have time to post until now aaa!

Dan doesn’t understand but he wants to try to anyway. Phil says it would be so much easier for them to talk at Dan’s because it’s growing darker by the second and the park closes as soon as it’s dark. Phil makes a joke about how he doesn’t want to be locked in the park so they best hurry along, and Dan laughs but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

They walk back to Dan’s in relative silence, a few paces behind Sophia and Amelia. The two girls keep turning around and looking back at Dan and offering a shy smile and Dan is grateful but that’s not what he needs right now. He doesn’t know whether he should even be receiving sympathy because as far as he knows, Phil hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Maybe he hasn’t at all and Dan has just been a whiny bitch for nothing.

They silently make it back to Dan’s. Sophia and Amelia walk a few steps in front of them in the hallway to take their shoes and jackets off, realising that the entryway to the apartment isn’t big enough for two six-foot-three men to do that alongside two other people. For that, Dan is grateful because that means he can put a bit of personal space in between him and Phil.

Sophia hands Dan their shoes and coats, saying a quick thank you as Dan puts them in their respective places. Once he’s done that, he heads straight to his bedroom, leaving Sophia and Amelia in the hallway as they head to the lounge. He hears Phil follow him shortly afterwards.

Dan sits on the edge of his bed and looks in Phil’s general direction as he just stands in front of him. Dan didn’t have time to take into account how good Phil looks right now, because he was too busy being annoyed at him at the park. But Phil does really good. He’s wearing a simple black ribbed jumper with black ripped skinny jeans – he literally looks like he’s walked straight out of Dan’s wardrobe. Dan makes a mental reminder to make a common on that later when and if this situation resolves itself.

Dan can’t manage to make his eyes look into Phil’s, but looking behind Phil is definitely enough for now.

“I know it looks like I was cheating on you or whatever,” Phil begins to explain, obviously flustered and running his hands through his hair. “But I can assure you that isn’t the case.”

“Look, Phil, like I said, we’re not exclusive and I don’t hold that over you. You can see who you want.”

“Yeah we aren’t exclusive,” Phil responds but offers a shy smile in Dan’s direction. He can tell Phil is looking for eye contact and he reluctantly offers it to him. “But I want to be, Dan.”

“What?” Dan knows he’s fucking blushing so hard right now but he isn’t going to let that deter him from finding out whatever happened in the park just there. No way did he just hear Phil say he wants to be exclusive with Dan.

“I don’t want to see anyone else.”

“Then who was tha-“

“Let me explain,” Phil butts in before Dan can finish his sentence, Dan would be annoyed but at least he’s getting an explanation.

Dan nods and allows Phil to continue, Phil takes his seat finally in Dan’s desk chair opposite Dan, but far enough so they weren’t invading each other’s personal space.

“I never told you what I do for a living and that’s my fault. I definitely should have done that before now but I always felt uncomfortable bringing it up,” Phil sighs, tilting his head to look at Dan a lot easier and Dan involuntarily matches him. “That sounds – I definitely do not mean it like that.”

They both awkwardly chuckle for a few seconds before Dan opens his mouth to speak, “Where do you work?”

“I work at a mental health charity organisation. It’s nothing MASSIVE but I basically have a few clients who I help get their life back on track after they’ve gone through some stuff that isn’t very nice.”

Oh, Dan thinks to himself. He definitely feels like an idiot right about now.

“I’m not supposed to tell you this because client confidentiality and all that but you saw me with one of my clients at the park. Samuel is close to the end of his therapy with us and we were just having a casual walk in the back,” Phil chuckles as he shuffles back into the seat for a second to get more comfortable. “The way we work is we don’t offer traditional therapy sessions in offices because we know they can be daunting so we do them on walks in the park, at coffee shops etc.”

“I work weird hours sometimes because we tend to fit the sessions around our clients working hours so that’s why I usually tend to be busy on weeknights. But it really changes weekly so my hours are just _all_ over the place, as you probably guessed,” Phil continues and Dan just listens. He can’t believe that Phil didn’t tell him sooner, but at the same time, he kind of understands. It’s a heavy topic.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dan bites his lip. “I wouldn’t have judged you, that is such an awesome job, Phil.”

“It is rewarding,” Phil laughs, as he twiddles with his thumbs on his lap. “I don’t talk about it a lot really because it’s an awkward one. I don’t want to talk highly of myself saying I help people who have had breakdowns.”

“You deserve to talk highly about yourself if you do something like that,” Dan offers but when Phil shakes his head and sighs, Dan knows not to push that any further. “But I get why you didn’t tell me.”

“You do?” Phil looks up and catches Dan’s gazes, biting his lip as he does.

“Yeah, it’s a tricky situation to be in.”

“Thank you,” Phil replies, smiling wholeheartedly at Dan. Dan returns it and this time his smile reaches his eyes.

“It’s okay,” Dan finds himself looking away because he can’t stop smiling and looking at Phil looking at him like THAT, he knows he’s going to lose it and say something sappy that he regrets. He thinks about what Phil had just told him and one thing comes to mind, that’s definitely far too sappy and embarrassing to say. Blushing, flustered Dan doesn't really care about that.

“So,” Dan teases, smirking slightly. “What’s this about wanting to be exclusive?”

Dan watches Phil tense up and a rosy blush scatter all around his face and neck, and he loves seeing Phil like this and it’s comforting to know he’s not the only one, “Shut up. You know exactly what I meant.”

“I don’t think I do, care to enlighten me?”

“You’re annoying, Howell.”

Dan hums as he watches Phil roll across the room on Dan’s desk chair to separate the gap in between them. Dan, without thinking about it, parts his legs so that Phil can wheel himself closer. He watches as Phil wraps his hand around Dan’s waist and pull him closer, almost on Phil’s lap.

“You know what I mean.”

“Maybe I do,” Dan whispers as he closes his eyes for a second to relish in the feeling of Phil’s breath blowing on his lips. He’s never felt this needy for kisses before, but Phil just _does_ this to him.

Phil exhales a light huff that can be described as laughter as he watches Dan’s reaction before Dan opens his eyes again and flicks them between Phil’s beautiful multi-coloured orbs and his lips, not knowing what to focus on first.

Phil brings his free hand up to Dan’s cheek. He rubs circles carelessly with his thumb before closing any remaining space between them and taking Dan’s bottom lip between both of his and pulling on it with his teeth. Dan literally whimpers as he feels the loss of Phil but he doesn’t have long to think about it before Phil presses their lips together, only pausing for air.

Phil’s mouth is hot and desperate but Dan doesn’t mind. He still doesn’t mind when Phil’s hand wanders from his cheek and begins caressing his neck, making a moan escape his mouth. But it’s fine because Phil just catches the moan and allows himself to use that as an invitation to deepen the kiss.

Dan kisses back just as desperately as Phil and matches each and every movement with his own. He lets his hands get themselves into Phil’s hair and stroking along the back of his head.

Dan inhales sharply at the sudden loss of contact when Phil’s mouth leaves his own. Phil doesn’t move too far away though, resting his forehead against Dan’s as they both regain their breath back.

“So, do you understand what I mean now?” Phil pants in between placing gentle, delicate kisses along Dan’s jawbone. Dan can almost laugh at the difference between the kiss he just had a second ago and these ones, but he loves them both the same.

“I-I think so, yeah,” Dan manages to muster, laughing at himself for how pathetic he sounds. “Good.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?” Phil chuckles as he pushes back completely from Dan and begins standing up. Dan wants to whine and beg Phil to stay but he remembers it’s a work night and now he knows Phil’s job, he realises he probably needs to get a decent sleep.

“Okay, maybe I don’t want to put my foot in it and accidentally assume what you’re saying and get it wrong,” Dan laughs in response, automatically standing up to meet Phil.

Phil wraps his hands around Dan’s waist upon instinct and pulls him closer when Dan wraps his arms around Phil’s neck, staring into his beautiful blue eyes. He could definitely get used to seeing those eyes all the time.

“Well,” Phil chuckles, resting his head on Dan’s shoulder for a brief second before bringing it back up and matching Dan with equally intense eye contact. “What I’m trying to say, Dan, is I don’t want anyone else. I only want you.”

“Yep got that,” Dan teases as he holds back a laugh.

“God, you make this so difficult.”

“S-sorry,” Dan laughs finally but finds comfort in hearing Phil laugh alone with him.

“I only want _you_, Dan. So if you’ll have me, I would love to be your boyfriend,” Phil bites his lip but is still smiling just as much as he was a few moments ago. “You know if you want.”

“I’ll definitely have to think about it,” Dan laughs as he pretends to think, even going as far as to remove one of his hands from Phil’s neck and rest it on his own chin.

“You’re actually a dick, forget I said anything,” Phil pushes him with his arms that are wrapped around his waist before placing them back, almost as quickly as they left.

“Yes, Phil,” Dan responds properly whilst placing a delicate kiss on Phil’s lips.

“Okay, good,” Phil nods nonchalantly.

“_Good_?!” Dan squeals as he bats the side of Phil’s head with his hand in a way that definitely wouldn’t hurt but would express his annoyance at the teasing anyway.

“You started it, Howell.”

“Shut up,” Dan smirks as he leans in and takes Phil’s lips with his own, properly this time, with the equal amount of heat and love attached. Dan definitely knows he is fucked now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i wrote the plan for this chapter i wasnt sure what job to give him, either like something r rated or THIS and i decided to go with this :) because it makes it a lot more of a fluffy wholesome fic like i want. and i do eventually want to write an au with one of them in another line of work so i thought id keep that for then !


	10. chapter ten

The rest of the week is pretty uneventful for Dan. He doesn’t see Phil for the entirety of it because they’re both super busy with work but Dan gets that. Not every week can they spend most days together as they have done in the past.

Phil opens up a lot more about his work over the far too many texts and calls they exchanged over the week and that just makes Dan think about him in awe. He really has a boyfriend who works SO hard and helps other people. Like sure, Dan’s job helps children learn in theory but Dan knows he doesn’t actually do anything productive for the children, whereas Phil actually helps.

That’s why Dan’s at home when all of his friends are out clubbing. He decided to stay at home on a Friday night to catch up on the side of his course that teaches him something. Whilst he isn’t getting his PGCE at university as everyone else does, he still has monthly assignments to submit on the university website to prove that he’s actually learning something and getting his qualification properly. Whether he’s actually learning something is much different from the so called facts he’s writing on this work document that’s due to be submitted next week.

He’s heavily starting to regret not accepting the invitation a few hours later when he’s getting absolutely nowhere close to finishing this straight forward essay about dealing with learning difficulties in the classroom and he can’t imagine finishing it tonight.

He closes his laptop admitting defeat and heads into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea, two sugars and soy milk, before heading back into his room. He lies back on his bed and _finally_ lets himself check his phone after putting it as far away from him as possible so he wasn’t distracted.

He sees several texts from Phil and decides to reply straight away.

_Phil 8:57pm: i just came out of a three hour meeting and now I have another one pray for me_

_Phil 9:01pm: there's a guy with odd shoes on i-_

_Phil 9:23pm: i hope you’re working your ass off to do this assignment due_

_Phil 9:24pm: i know you are x_

_Phil 11:03pm: ive finished work im coming to get u i know you’re home alone x_

Dan quickly glances at the time and realises it’s twenty minutes past eleven, meaning Phil would be here any minute. He jumps out of his bed and freaks the fuck out. He’s wearing pyjamas and his hair looks _gross_. He definitely doesn’t have time for a shower, Phil will be here any second.

He runs around his room in a panic to comb his hair as quickly as possible, deciding that no matter what he does to this hair it’s going to look awful because of _course_ he has ran out of dry shampoo the one day he desperately needs it. He throws on some random black skinny jeans that are lying on the floor of his bedroom and a clean blank oversized striped tee.

That should be enough he thinks to himself when his phone buzzes and it shows that he’s got a text from Phil.

_Phil 11:34pm: im outside x_

_Dan 11:35pm: coming x_

Dan jogs outside, grabbing his phone and wallet just in case. He makes it outside far too quick, he would think it was embarrassing but it’s Phil. He wouldn’t mind.

He makes it down the steps to greet Phil.

“Steady on,” Phil winks as he looks up from his phone. Dan really feels like Phil needs to be aware of how he resting on the hood of his car to wait for Dan affects him. He has no idea.

Dan tilts his head in confusion but Phil offers nothing more than that apart from bringing him in for a quick hug and a kiss of the cheek, “I missed you, love.”

“You too,” Dan says, smile beaming at Phil as he pulls away from the embrace.

~~~~~

Phil unlocks the door with far much more ease than how Dan did a week ago. _WOW HAS IT REALLY BEEN THAT LONG?_ Phil takes his shoes and jacket off so Dan joins him and he barely has a second longer to think before he hears the tiny pitter-patter of a four-legged friend running towards them.

Dan looks down and sees a small and fluffy dog running towards Phil, jumping up to his shins and resting its paws on Phil’s knees. Dan watches in awe as he tries not to freak out about the entire fucking dog in front of him.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Huh?”

“You have a fucking dog and you never thought to tell me?” Dan laughs as he squats down to greet the small ball of fur in front of him. Honestly, Dan always thought Phil was a perfect guy but this just makes it so much more difficult to not think that Phil is this angel placed on Earth. He knows he’s being extra but he’s a bloody sucker for dogs.

“I didn’t think it was important?” Phil chuckles as he squats down to meet Dan and his dog.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. What’s his name?”

“Thor.”

“Wow, you really love Chris Hemsworth?”

“What can I say, I often adore people who I am similar to.”

“Oh yes, you and Thor are so similar,” Dan rolls his eyes and laughs as he rubs the tummy of Thor, the puppy in front of him.

“I’m glad you agree,” Phil replies as he places his hand lightly on the small of Dan’s back for a split second before removing it and standing up. Of course, Thor gets up and follows Phil so Dan does just that too.

They walk into the lounge of Phil’s flat and Dan literally thinks to himself that this place couldn’t be more Phil if it tries. There’s colour absolutely everywhere. There are signs of someone who loves anime and Pokemon far too much dotted around the lounge, with plushies of the most obscure Pokemon placed across the mantelpiece of the fireplace, on the top of the sofa and on shelves everywhere. There are pillows on the sofa full of edgy, nerdy references and framed posters of a variety of indie bands on the walls.

“This place is really you,” Dan mutters as he walks into the room properly and follows Phil into sitting on the sofa in the corner of the room. Above the sofa is a string of multi-coloured fairy lights that glimmer in low light. Dan can’t help but be mesmerised by them as he sits down right next to Phil, touching from their shoulders to their bent knees.

“What do you mean?” Phil replies as he turns his head to look at Dan, and all Dan sees is the glimmer in his eyes and he smiles.

“Like it’s so quirky and geeky,” Dan says with a twang in his voice that makes it clear he’s only teasing.

“And that’s me is it?” Phil laughs.

“I’d say so.”

Phil smiles and like truly _smiles_. It reaches his eyes and Dan can’t look away. “Do you want a drink?”

“Please.”

“Ribena?”

Dan hums in response as Phil stands up and rubs his hand on Dan’s thigh as he stands, the same way Dan’s Grandma does whenever she needs help standing up after sitting down for so long. It makes Dan chuckle silently to himself as he watches Phil walk away.

Dan looks down at his feet and sees Thor curling himself up on top of Dan’s socked feet and he smiles. This is perfect, he thinks to himself. He already feels at home.

Before he knows it, Phil returns with two pint glasses, like the ones you steal out of pubs when you really like the design, full of Ribena and he joins him again.

“I’m sorry if Thor annoys you in any way, by the way, he’s such a clingy puppy,” Phil says as he falls back into the sofa, wrapping his arm around the back of the sofa, right where Dan would lay if he follows suit and lies backwards too. “Like father like son, I guess.”

“He could never annoy me if he tried,” Dan whispers as he leans back into Phil’s embrace, it didn’t take him long to cave. He knows he did the right thing for both of them when he sees Phil’s little smile on his face in the corner of his eye.

“Good,” Phil smiles as he places a delicate kiss onto Dan’s temple, before turning around and grabbing his television remote control and turning back to Dan. “Netflix?”

Dan hates himself that his first thought about Netflix was a definite eighteen-plus idea but he swiftly nods his head and settles properly into Phil’s chest.

They spend hours watching pointless Netflix Original comedies, laughing and lazily kissing each other every now and again. It’s probably one of the best Friday nights that Dan has never had, he thinks to himself as he rests his head back against Phil’s shoulder.

“How was work today?”

“It was okay, boring as always really,” Dan mutters in response, not really looking away from the television and how Gillian Anderson tries to flirt with Jakob, the handyman who's just trying to fix her bathroom. She’s not doing a very good job. “You?”

“It was a lot.”

“Care to expand?” Dan turns his head to look up at Phil, to see him not looking away from the television too.

“I can’t really,” Phil sighs. This time looking away from the television, to place a couple of kisses onto Dan’s lips. “But it was just, a lot. One of my clients has been going through it and I had to work overtime to help them, hence why I finished later than I usually do.”

“Is everything okay?” Dan frowns, watching Phil look away finally to look back at Gillian Anderson.

“Yeah, she’s fine now, bu-“ Phil hesitates to finish the sentence and Dan just watches for a second, seeing whether Phil will continue. “She ran out of the coffee shop we were in and I had to chase after her and I realised that she was completely fine and was just catching her bus home because she forgot to pick her niece up from her brothers to babysit.”

“Oh? I mean that’s perfectly natural though, you would worry.”

“You haven’t heard the rest of it.”

“Okay, sorry, continue.”

Phil laughs a little before continuing, “So naturally, I have to come with her. I mean I’m paid for the three hours she booked so I thought I may as well and she _was_ in a crisis, so I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t lying and was safe. Turns out she was telling the truth and I had no reason to worry.”

“That’s good, then!”

“Yeah,” Phil replies as he leans forward to grab his pint glass and takes a sip of his Ribena. “I was walking back to the office to clock out and I realised I left my phone somewhere, I have no clue, so I had to retrace my steps all evening. I was so done.”

Dan giggles, after he realises it’s appropriate to do so due to hearing a chuckle come from Phil’s lips. “Did you find your phone in the end?”

“Dan, I text you,” Phil deadpans, which makes Dan giggle more.

“I was just checking,” Dan teases, looking into Phil’s eyes and accidentally getting lost in them for a few seconds, or hours Dan isn’t really sure.

“No, I didn’t, I used my brain to write out a text in my head and it magically sent to you,” Phil laughs as he rolls his eyes.

“You’re an idiot,” Dan teases and rolls his eyes too in a false annoyance. He wraps his fingers into Phil’s and instinctively pulls him closer without meaning to so the space in between them both grows more and more smaller.

“No, you are,” Phil quips back as he follows the drag of his hand to invade Dan’s personal place a little bit more every second. Every second that goes past means Phil falls further and further into the remaining gap between them and he finally stops because there’s no space apart from a few centimetres.

Dan can feel Phil’s breath faintly on his lips and he’s pretty sure Phil can feel his nervous panting too. They are both suddenly no longer interested in whatever Gillian Anderson is doing on the television, and maybe that’s for the best. They sit like this for what Dan personally feels like is days, months, years until he plucks up the courage to close the last bit of distance between them by pressing his lips against Phil’s.

Even though Dan started the kiss, Phil quickly takes control and Dan all but literally melts into Phil’s lips. If it were even possible, Phil leans in closer and presses his chest more firmly against Dan’s, finding it much easier to continue the kiss.

Dan didn’t know when it happened but he feels Phil’s hand wander from his own side to wrap lightly around Dan’s hips and all Dan could feel is the swooping of his heart and the intense need to prolong this kiss because all he wants to feel is _this_.

Dan falls onto his back lying on the sofa, inviting Phil to follow and he does. Not letting each other go for a second, Phil follows Dan’s body and rests carefully on top of him. All Dan can think about is how perfect this is and how he wants more, more and more.

Dan moves his hands to wrap around Phil’s back and opens his legs so Phil can find his home in between them as he belongs. He feels Phil’s warm fingers tickle underneath his jumper touching bare, exposed skin and he unwillingly allows a quiet moan to tumble out of his lips due to the sensation. Luckily, the moan’s completely muffled by Phil’s mouth because that means there was no possibility of anyone hearing, even though there is no one else around – that moan was a moment just for Phil to enjoy.

It’s almost as if Phil takes the moan and Dan’s parted lips as an invitation to explore, as Dan feels his tongue slip into his mouth almost instantly after the moan. Dan’s quick to respond, tangling his tongue with Phil’s and enjoying the feeling of someone dominantly over his body.

Dan focuses on the way Phil’s lips feel against his own, all soft and plump. Dan focuses on the way Phil’s fingertips dance over his hipbone and through the fine hairs on his tummy. Dan focuses on the way Phil makes him feel and how he hopes Phil is feeling the same way.  
Dan allows his hands to explore Phil’s body for as much as him being clothed would allow him to and handles the hem of Phil’s jumper. His hand falls onto Phil’s hips and he wraps his fingers around a belt loop, almost to ground himself.

It’s at this moment when Phil pulls back, but he didn’t go too far. Phil separates their lips and crashes his forehead against Dan’s, allowing himself to get his breath back and equally for Dan to get his own.

Dan opens his eyes and he’s met with Phil’s eyes bursting with want and clear nervousness. Phil’s biting his lip and Dan frowns at the sight.

“What’s wrong?” Dan says as he pushes himself up slightly so he can speak and think properly without feeling Phil’s entire body pressing up against him. Dan’s fingers relax around Phil’s belt loop but he doesn’t release, just relaxes so he can still keep in contact with Phil.

Phil’s breath slows and he looks at Dan, releasing his lip from his teeth, “I j-just – holy shit – I just want to go slow.”

Instantly Dan understands. Everything was going well with that little moment they were having but Phil didn’t want to rush things.

Dan releases Phil’s belt loop and cradles his cheek, making Phil have no choice BUT to look at Dan in the eyes, something he was avoiding as soon as he stopped the kissing.

“Hey, it’s okay. I understand,” Dan offers a small smile to show he’s genuine and when Phil returns it, he continues. “That was…”

“That was,” Phil repeats with a giggle under his breath. He relaxes his body from the tense stance he had from pushing away from Dan and falls next to him, still kind of on top.

Dan wraps his arm around the back of Phil and pulls him in for a cuddle. They had all the time in the world to do anything more than kissing and if Phil wasn’t ready, Dan could wait.

There are a few moments of silence before Phil whispers, “You’re too important. I just want everything to be right.”

Even though he knows Phil cannot see him because of the way they are lying, he still attempts to hide his blushing face into Phil’s hair. He hears Phil chuckle and he automatically knows he’s been rumbled.

“Blush away up there, I can’t see you.”

“Shut up,” Dan teases, lightly smacking the back of Phil’s head. He shuffles down so he’s back into a lying down position again and nuzzles into Phil’s hair properly, wrapping his arm tighter around the wonderful boy’s body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) im really loving how this story is progressing and i think ive 100% planned out all the chapters for this fic but im not too sure yet. i might add a few more in here and there <3
> 
> someone who reads this commented about wanting something in phils pov and i really like that idea but i just wondered what you all think?? shall i set it up as a completely separate one shot or include it in a chapter of this fic?? i think the first option is better so it doesnt get confusing, because ive thought of a perfect idea for the phil pov fic and it will probably be after this fic ends *no spoilers here so im leaving it there lmfao*
> 
> also really cant believe phil had a dog and didnt tell any of us how rude of him. yes you can totally tell it was an impulsive decision because i wanted to write dan and phil and dog content


	11. chapter eleven

Dan wakes up expecting to wake up in a place that wasn’t his own but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t startle him slightly to flutter awake in the arms of someone else. Phil.

He manages to open his eyes with minimal reluctance to how bright it is and takes in his surroundings, all without moving too much to wake up Phil. His back is seemingly against the back of the sofa and his legs are wrapped around Phil’s. He has to stifle a giggle when he realises just how much he is crushed he is. Two fully grown men who are over the average height for men should not fit on a sofa like this and be comfortable and Dan isn’t but that doesn’t mean he's going to do anything about it.

He can't imagine that Phil is in a much better situation either. If Dan is uncomfortable and squished up against the back of the sofa, then Phil is definitely uncomfortable too but instead, he’s probably holding on to Dan for dear life because if he moves even the slightest bit, he’s off the edge of this sofa and he will fall onto the floor.

Maybe they should have moved but truth be told, Dan doesn’t remember even falling asleep. He wasn’t supposed to sleep here. He had plans to go home and sleep in his own double bed with his own blanket on his own with plenty of room. Dan can’t bring himself to hate this situation though because he got to sleep with Phil and he doesn’t think he could ever regret this situation if he tried.

Almost like he could sense Dan being awake, Phil begins to stir. Dan holds on for the confusion and the anger and the _why are you cuddling me_ and the _you should leave_ but they never come because this isn’t the usual hookup that Dan is used to. It’s not even a hookup. It’s a boyfriend sleeping over at their boyfriend’s house because they accidentally fell asleep, and even if they didn’t accidentally fall asleep it would still be fine because they’re dating and that makes it okay.

The usual anger and confusion that Dan sees appear on people’s faces when they wake up to Dan accidentally cuddling them in their slumber doesn’t appear. Instead, Dan gets sleepy eyes and toothy grins that are hidden by hands moving over their face out of embarrassment.

“Don’t hide your face,” Dan whispers as he frowns and removes Phil’s hand from his face. Phil only responds with smiling more and Dan knows Phil can see the scatter of pinkness across his cheeks that appears at the thought of that smile being because of Dan.

“Why not?”

“It’s pretty.”

“Okay,” Phil blushes as he shuffles closer to Dan if that was even possible. It’s a cold autumnal morning so snuggling close wasn’t the worst thing and it wasn’t ruined by the clamming air from the middle of August. Even though, thinking about it, Dan couldn’t imagine minding feeling a little sweaty and sticky if it means he gets to still cuddle Phil next summer. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Dan smiles as he puts his head on Phil’s chest. He looks down at the edge of the sofa where he sees their feet intertwined together almost like it is normal and natural. Dan struggled to come up with a reason why this wasn’t normal or natural. “I don’t think I’ve ever woke up like this without fucking before.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“You deserve cuddles regardless of the sex, Dan. I’m glad I could give this to you, even if it is a small thing,” Phil mutters as if it’s the easiest thing for him to say in the world and Dan believes him. It’s weird to wake up without being forced out of the house in the early hours of the morning but Dan can and will get used to it. He wants nothing more than the warmth he feels in his chest right now and Dan could laugh thinking about how this feels so much better than any morning he’s had with another man. He can’t even use post-orgasm headspace as a reason for his loved up thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Of course,” Phil says as Dan feels a kiss being pressed into the top of his head. “Although it would be better in a bed though.”

Phil laughs and so does Dan because at least they are thinking the same thing, “It’s not really fit for two overgrown men to sleep all night on, huh?”

“Let’s not make a habit of it,” Phil says as he squeezes Dan’s shoulder lightly. “But definitely make a habit of sleepovers and cuddles. I like those, especially with you.”

Dan feels his heart soar as he hears those words. He knew deep down that Phil was thinking them with what he said before but hearing them out loud hits differently. He feels himself melt into the cuddle even more which he knows he will regret much later because they are still on the bloody sofa but he can’t force himself to care right now.

“Let’s definitely make a habit of this.”

~~~~~

At some point in the morning, Thor finds them and nuzzles his way in between their intertwined legs, if there was already less room between them. He finds the room for his tiny little body to slot in a space anyway, like he belongs.

“When do you have work?” Dan asks even though he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to leave the warm cocoon of Phil’s arms and Phil’s cuddle even if they are both still wearing jeans from the day before but he knows he needs to at some point. Phil has work to go to and now that Dan knows that Phil does for a living, he definitely doesn’t want him to miss a day on his account.

“Soon actually,” Phil sighs as he moves his arm in view of both his and Dan’s face to look at his watch. Dan knows Phil has work just after midday most weekends because it’s when a lot of people have time off. When Phil works in the week, he usually works much later shifts due to having to work around his clients. Most of his clients work full time so it makes sense for his work to begin when they would usually finish work. So his weekend shifts are usually scattered about, whenever he finds time usually because his clients are more or less free on weekends for him to pick and choose those dates.

Dan shuffles away and untangles his arms from around Phil’s back to allow Phil to move, taking the movement of his arm to look at his watch as an invitation to do so. He knows he can’t really have Phil forever and he does need to go home to shower later.

He watches as Phil makes his way off of the sofa and tries not to feel the loss of the warmth he gained from Phil being glued to him. Dan suddenly doesn’t know what to do. He forgets that he is in his boyfriends home for a second and not in a random hookups bedroom so he stands up ready to let himself out of the house when he hears Phil shouting from upstairs.

“If you want a second, Dan, I’ll take you home?” Dan isn’t sure if that’s more of a question or a sentence but he replies to it like a question anyway.

“No, it’s fine. I want to walk,” Dan says as he looks down at his shoes to tie them. He hopes Phil isn’t taking this as rejection, maybe he isn’t because after all, not everyone in the world are as sensitive and insecure as Dan. Not everyone in the world has entered their first proper relationship not knowing what the fuck to do in one.

He hears footsteps walking down the stairs and stopping right in front of him. So when Dan finally looks up to meet Phil’s heavy gaze and is greeted with warm eyes and an even warmer smile, he knows everything is fine. It’s completely healthy for couples to do things on their own even if it would be so much easier for them to do things together, he thinks to himself as he says goodbye to Thor quickly before standing up.

“I should go,” Dan says matter of factly. He is going to hate himself for being _this_ awkward when it comes to relationships and being around Phil the morning after because he knows deep down that he has nothing to worry about but that isn’t stopping him now.

“Right, are you sure I can’t give you a lift home?”

“No, I want to walk. I like walking home, get to think.”

“I hope nothing too bad?” Phil tilts his head and bites his lip and opens his mouth again. “Is everything okay, Dan?”

It’s at this moment that Dan’s wall that he had somehow built over the years of pointless hook-ups and attempts at relationships that led to nothing other than Dan’s heart being hurt came crumbling down. It didn’t completely resolve and disappear from Dan’s brain but it’s a start. A brick of the wall is gone.

“Y-yeah. I think I just really need to shower and get into my bed,” Dan laughs because that’s probably true. He has no reason to react like this so he knows it’s probably the lack of comfortable sleep he’s had this morning and how self-aware he is about his need for a shower.

“Okay,” Phil smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes and Dan KNOWS he knows something is up but he isn’t going to push it. “Text me?”

“Yeah of course,” Dan smiles because he knows he can say that. He will text Phil, probably as soon as he walks out the door to begin his walk.

“Okay,” Phil smiles back and steps forward into Dan’s personal space. Dan knows (and kind of hopes) that Phil is going to kiss him goodbye but when Phil wraps his arms around Dan’s shoulders and pulls him forward slightly, he’s decided he can’t be too mad about this reality too.

He wraps his arms back around Phil’s waist and rests his head on Phil’s shoulder, taking in the familiar scent of his boyfriend. With this he soon realises that he literally has nothing to worry about, nothing at all, and all of the overthinking was for nothing like always.

“Bye, Dan.”

“Bye, Phil.”

~~~~~

The walk home is a quick one. Mainly because whilst Dan doesn’t dislike walking through Manchester alone in the middle of the day, he doesn’t particularly love it either. But he knew he could do with the walk and the time to think.

As soon as he left Phil’s, he realised how much of an idiot he was for overthinking everything. Actually, he realised whilst hugging Phil goodbye. He has nothing to worry about with Phil and the idea that he ever did worry about how Phil feels about him makes him almost laugh on the walk home because it’s insane. It’s weird to think he knows so clearly what Phil thinks about him when in all of those romantic movies the people are always so clear.

Maybe Dan’s life is nothing like the romantic comedies that he is forced to watch with Sophia and Amelia and maybe that’s a good thing.  
It doesn’t take him all that long to walk back to his apartment, only now finding out that Phil doesn’t actually live all that far from him. He got the impression that Phil lived so far away because of his incessant need to drive Dan home or his use of a car in general, not many people that he knows own a car because living in the city centre of Manchester is easy with public transport and walking, but he guesses Phil is just _that_ person who wants to help people he cares about.

Dropping his keys on the little wooden table by the door and shoving off his shoes secretly hoping that no one is home because all he wants to do is shower and sleep, he realises he is not home alone. In fact, more than the actual number of people who live in Dan’s apartment are currently here which is not at all surprising but still makes Dan roll his eyes.

He quickly decides that he just wants to sleep, not even attempting to shower beforehand because that will alert them that he is home. So he heads towards his bedroom door and begins to push the door open when he hears the patter of several feet and laughter and hushed tones. It takes all of his energy to not loudly groan in annoyance at this moment.

“Hi, Daniel.”

Okay so he does groan and he isn’t proud of it. He knows his friends are going to mock him for staying up all night and believe that he just went to someone’s house to fuck them and now he’s doing the walk of shame which isn’t true. He just wants to sleep.

He turns around to look and he could have told anyone that he would be looking at Amelia, Sophia and Lucas because it really is that easy to guess.

“Do you two even own your own apartment? You’re never there,” Dan sighs which gains a giggle from Amelia. He’s kind of glad for that because he isn’t attempting to be mean at all, he loves that his friends are always here. But just not right now. Not when he’s walking into his apartment trying to just go straight to bed after spending the night on a sofa not built for two over six-foot men to sleep on.

“We _are_ there, we’re just ready for the day way earlier than you decide to wake up,” Amelia retorts which only makes Dan roll his eyes more. “Or when you decide to come home after a night out.”

Sophia tries to suppress a giggle but Dan catches it and throws her his middle finger.

“Where were you anyway?” Lucas questions with a smirk. He knows. They all do. “You left me without my housewife I was so worried.”

“Shut up,” Dan laughs. “I was at Phil’s.”

Before he even finishes saying Phil’s name, he’s met with coos and aws from the group in front of him. He wants to continue being mad but it just makes him blush. Blushing isn’t helping his situation because blushing is something everyone can see.

“Did yo-“

“No! I don’t wanna hear it,” Lucas grimaces as he raises his hands in disgust and begins to head back into the lounge, leaving Sophia and Amelia with Dan which isn’t a better scenario. “I don’t want to hear what my housewife does with his boyfriend.”

Dan blushes at the words. He didn’t think it was even possible for him to blush more but it happens and he _knows_ Amelia spots it.

“Shut up, Lucas!” Dan shouts in an attempt to avoid the comments on his blushing. He turns back to his bedroom door, hoping that this is enough of a conversation killing so he can go to sleep.

“I ain’t seeing him deny anything,” Amelia laughs as she leans against Sophia, she automatically snakes her hand around her girlfriend's waist. “Do you, Soph?”

“Nope,” Sophia laughs. “But the mans clearly tired. He can tell us about his boyfriend later when he catches up on the sleep he’s clearly lost.”

Dan doesn’t miss the wink that Sophia throws him. He chooses to ignore that now because he’s actually being nice to him so he’ll allow it. He throws a timid nod in their direction and all but literally runs into his room, shutting the door behind him.

All he thinks about whilst he’s trying to sleep is Phil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi !!! sorry this chapter came out later than usual. i try to post in the morning but i woke up late and had to go and get a tattoo lmao ! <3


	12. chapter twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok im pretty sure i dreamt giving you this chapter on saturday because i could have sworn i did but obviously not ???? it wasnt until i went to upload a chapter for my other fic that i noticed oops!!! sorry its late <3

Dan definitely did not plan to sleep from like 4pm to the early hours of the next morning but he did. He wakes up a little after 5am when the sun is definitely not up yet and if Dan didn’t check his phone quickly as soon as he woke up, he would have thought it was midnight or something way earlier in the morning.

He laughs to himself when he realises he has probably fucked up his sleeping schedule indefinitely and he has no idea how he’s going to regulate this again in time for this workweek in a few days. But that’s nothing to worry about now. He thinks if he is going to be wide awake at 5am then he may as well do something productive about it. He throws the duvet off of his body and gets out of bed.

He pads his way to his en-suite, which he is so _so_ thankful for because he gets the bath and they are almost the best thing in his life. He turns the tap on and allows the bath to fill up, throwing in a bunch of bath related things that to be quite honest, Dan doesn’t know what they do but he uses them anyway. He throws in some expensive rose petals that Sophia and Amelia bought him last Christmas in one of those fancy gift sets, that he’s saving for a special occasion, deeming waking up at 5am a special occasion.

Before the bath completely fills up, he makes his way back into his room to grab a fresh towel out of his cupboard, because Amelia complains when he kept his towels in the bathroom as apparently, they keep them the slightest bit damp and it’s not good for your skin.

Just as he walks back into the bathroom, he halts just by his phone. He shouldn’t be thinking about texting Phil at five in the morning but he is. So he grabs his phone and opens up the text chat with his boyfriend.

_Dan 5:04am: I know you’re probably asleep but I’m wide awake and I wanted to say good morning before you beat me to it_

_Dan 5:04am: so good morning u idiot_

He throws his phone back onto the bed, not expecting a response this early in the morning, and heads back into the bathroom. Taking off his clothes and getting into the bath, realising that he stupidly left the towel on his bed when he dropped it to send Phil a text.

All he can think about is how hilarious it will look when he has to get out the bathtub and locate that towel in around half an hour.

But he doesn’t dwell on that right now because he’s in a bath and it’s supposed to be a relaxing experience, not one that makes him laugh at his own embarrassment even if technically no one would see.

About two hours and a cold bathtub full of rose-scented petals later, Dan is lying on his bed with a towel wrapped around his waist staring at the ceiling. It’s not even 8am yet and Dan has completely pampered himself. His skin is exfoliated and moisturised. His body smells like a mixture of rose and lavender. His face feels tight with the avocado face-mask that he has on.

He’s about to turn on his laptop to watch something on Netflix in order to pass the time when his phone buzzes. He tries to ignore the butterflies in his chest bursting through and hoping that it’s Phil because as soon as he reaches his phone and unlocks it, he sees his hope was in a good place.

_Phil 7:56am: why are you up so early wtf_

_Phil 7:56am: but good morning lovely <3_

_Dan 7:57am: I fell asleep as soon as I got home like an idiot lmfao_

_Phil 7:58am: so you had almost 12 hours sleep ….. wow dan_

_Dan 8:00am: listen don’t judge me_

_Dan 8:00am: I clearly needed my beauty sleep_

_Phil 8:00am: you’re already very pretty Daniel_

Dan would usually tell the other person to shut up and roll his eyes but he can’t just manage to with Phil. So instead he just blushes and tries not to gush too hard as he replies in a standard Dan fashion.

_Dan 8:01am: you’re so right im glad you said it_

_Phil 8:01am: I take back the compliment you don’t deserve it_

~~~~~

They continue texting and flirting throughout the morning until Phil says that he has work and Dan is dragged into the lounge with Amelia and Sophia, for some reason Lucas is still asleep and they didn’t think to force him to socialise. Amelia and Sophia are cuddled up on the three-seater and Dan’s resting in the armchair opposite them with his mug of tea instead of a person.

“So tell us about your boyfriend then?”

Dan hoped the conversation on Phil wouldn’t start straight away and luckily for him, it didn’t. It took a grand total of twenty minutes and a quick cup of coffee before Dan’s friends brought up the question. Lucky him.

“Yeah, Dan, tell us?” Amelia responds looking directly at Dan with an innocent smile on her face. Dan knows it’s far from innocent though, knowing Amelia.

“He asked me to be his boyfriend the other day and yeah, it’s pretty much early days but I really like him,” Dan mutters whilst trying to not to let his blush completely show. He knows they can see but they are somewhat sweet enough to not comment on it.

“Have you shagged?”

“Sophia you can’t just ask that,” Amelia gasps, slapping her girlfriend fondly on the arm. “But have you?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“We’re taking it slow.”

“That’s nice,” Sophia smiles and with this smile, he knows she means it. Sophia is nothing like Amelia but at the same time, they are both the exact same person. Amelia is the cheeky, annoying one in the relationship who asks way too many questions. Sophia is almost the opposite; she’s sweet and lovely and she doesn’t push too hard when she knows she shouldn’t be pushing. But together, together they are like terrible twins who are born to just irritate you. In the best way possible. “No, I like that. You should take it at whatever pace you’re ready for, Dan.”

“It’s not just a hook up for me, you know? I just love the cute dates and the gentle kisses. I never usually get th-“ Dan responds as he feels his phone vibrate in his ass pocket. He lifts up to get it out and reads a text message from Phil.

_Phil 12:56pm: my first appointment cancelled last minute because she had family around so I’m just chilling in the coffee shop near you if you’re free?_

Dan bites his lip, evidently thinking about the situation. He does want to spend time with Phil but he has kind of neglected his friends recently because all of his spare time has been spent with Phil. He loves the idea of another coffee date with Phil but he knows he shouldn’t.

_Dan 12:56pm: I’m with soph and Amelia :[ otherwise I would_

_Phil 12:56pm: its fine <3 just a thought have fun love x_

Dan barely has time to put his phone away before his lovely, completely lovely, friends coo at him for the obvious smile on his face. He rolls his eyes but he lowkey loves it.

“I take it that was loverboy?” Sophia smirks as she grabs her own mug off of the coffee table to take a sip. “Is he coming here?”

“No, he just had a free hour and wondered if I was free.”

“And you aren’t?” Amelia raises her eyebrow. It wasn’t in a bitchy way as far as Dan could tell. It was more of a "why haven't you said yes because you are very clearly free" kind of way.

“I’m with you guys aren’t I?” Dan laughs.

“You could’ve gone?”

“No, it’s cool. I want to spend time with you both,” Dan smiles, because he does actually mean that. He would never tell them this, but usually, he found them really uncomfortable to be around without Lucas here. He never really understood why he felt uncomfortable around the pair of them because on their own, he was fine. But he's gathered now that it was probably because he was horrifically single and they were in love.

“Phil really has put you in a constant good mood, huh?”

“You could say that.”

~~~~~

_Dan 3:21pm: I take it back._

_Dan 3:21pm: spending time with Sophia and Amelia was not a good way to spend my day_

_Phil 3:30pm: too much gene?_

_Dan 3:31pm: definitely_

_Dan 3:31pm: they’ve made me BAKE with them what the fuck_

_Dan 3:31pm: im no baker_

_Phil 3:36pm: what are you baking_

_Dan 3:37pm: some kind of muffin_

_Dan 3:37pm: honestly god knows_

_Dan 3:37pm: but I’ll save u some if you dare try them ???_

_Phil 3:45pm: philly wants some_

_Dan 3:47pm: then philly shall get some_

~~~~~

_Dan 4:51pm: it somehow got worse_

_Phil 4:59pm: worse??? HOW_

_Phil 4:59pm: is that possible?_

_Dan 5:00pm: somehow yes_

_Dan 5:00pm: im getting roped into face masks and a nail painting session_

_Dan 5:01pm: I don’t HATE it but_

_Phil 5:03pm: too much gene?_

_Dan 5:03pm: TOO MUCH_

_Dan 5:04pm: but my nails are looking cute just in case you wanted to know_

_Dan 5:05pm: and my skin is looking flawless_

_Dan 5:05pm: your boyfriend went from a 4 to a solid 6_

_Phil 5:07pm: im interested by these nails_

_Phil 5:07pm: shut up you’re a solid 9 on a good day_

_Dan 5:08pm: not a ten? Gasps_

_Phil 5:09pm: that’s reserved for me sorry x_

_Dan 5:11pm: makes sense_

_Dan 5:11pm: N E WAYS my nails_

_Phil 5:13pm: go on ………._

_Dan 5:16pm: how do u feel about_

_Dan 5:17pm: ……………………._

_Dan 5:17pm: ………………….._

_Phil 5:18pm: the suspense_

_Dan 5:19pm: dark blue_

_Dan 5:19pm: a navy with a clear glitter_

_Phil 5:23pm: shut up_

_Phil 5:23pm: that sounds so cute ;-;_

_Dan 5:23pm: RIGHT?!?!??_

_Phil 5:24pm: keep it on until I next see u please_

_Dan 5:25pm: so you’re getting free muffin and cute dan hand content_

_Dan 5:25pm: what do I get_

_Phil 5:28pm: nothing_

~~~~~

The evening draws to an end with Lucas returning home with a few work friends to have a few drinks in the lounge. Dan doesn’t hate it. He is glad Lucas has friends at work because, for the longest time, Lucas struggled to make friends with his underlying trauma of being not accepting his sexuality or his gender. Dan couldn’t be happier that his best friend is bringing people home to hang out with, it genuinely warms Dan.

But that doesn’t mean he’s making any attempt to make friends with them.

He wants to, truly. He just feels comfort in hiding in the corner of the lounge, curled up in a ball on his phone. He IS involved in the friendly get together but he’s more than happy to just sit it out a little bit and just listen every now and again.

He listens to Lucas laughing and making jokes with this one person with bleach blonde short hair, almost like a pixie cut, who Dan thinks goes by the name of Angel but he isn’t too sure. They laugh about jokes that Dan doesn’t get the punchline too, maybe because he doesn’t work in Lucas’ line of work but he appreciates how much it makes him laugh anyway.

He listens to Amelia and Sophia keeping to themselves on the other side of the sofa to him, talking about things that he wished he couldn’t hear coming from their mouths and if he was fully immersed in the gathering, he would have fake gagged again.

He listens to one of Lucas’ friends talk about how their partner is hoping to go back to university super soon to get their masters degree and how proud they are of their girlfriend because they had a stressful time at university and the idea of going back to get another degree was not even a thought a few years ago.

Dan feels a warmth scatter through his veins and throughout his entire being at the thought of this maybe being a situation he and Phil could be in in the future if they stay together that long. Dan always toys with the idea of going back to university after he successfully finishes his on the job training. Maybe a few years after that. He just didn’t want to go back to university straight after his BA because he didn’t have a good time either.

Maybe Phil would be accepting and proud too.

He decides he has had enough of listening in to conversations he wasn’t part of and diverts his attention right back to the phone in his hand. His hand that’s nails are painted with a glittery navy blue and Dan can’t help but think it’s beautiful.

He’s always been a little feminine with his tastes, if you could even call nail polish feminine in 2019. Even the straightest of cis men embraced the nail polish trend this year so Dan struggles to fit a gendered label onto it anymore. His point still stands however, he wasn’t against trying out traditionally feminine things every now and again. He spent a lot of time with Amelia and Sophia who demanded testing out new makeup products every now and again and Dan didn’t even pretend to hate it. He wouldn’t be opposed to wearing a dress or some cute ass lingerie if they ever did anything in his big man size.

So this nail polish on his nails didn’t really phase him. He loved it and he loves that his workplace is so accepting that he can get away with wearing a little nail polish – maybe not as colourful as what he has on right now but a small glitter polish every now and again.

He’s been idly texting Phil the entire day and he hasn’t got bored. Dan isn’t going to admit that he feels like a bloody teenager in this relationship but when every time his phone vibrates in his hand, he gets a small amount of butterflies throughout his gut.

He shuffles back into the corner of his sofa and unlocks his phone, opening up the text conversation between him and Phil.

_Phil 9:31pm: I just finished work :D_

_Phil 9:31pm: what are you doing?_

_Dan 9:32pm: im hanging out with everyone in the lounge, kinda fun ig??_

_Dan 9:32pm: you’re more than welcome to come over for a bit if you want_

_Phil 9:34pm: no its fine im super tired_

_Phil 9:34pm: I did want to ask you something though_

Dan’s heart automatically sinks. He can’t help but assume that whenever something goes right for him, that it will go all tits up. He doesn’t think that Phil is going to break up with him but something is very clearly wrong.

He tries to keep the best poker face for everyone in the room, heaven forbid they question it, and replies quickly.

_Dan 9:35pm: shoot_

_Phil 9:37pm: my friends are having a get together on Friday and I wondered if you wanted to come?_

Dan could actually laugh. He could laugh so hard at how much his anxiety plays him in unnecessary situations.

_Dan 9:37pm: jfc phil_

_Dan 9:37pm: was there any need to be ominous_

_Phil 9:38pm: I didn’t think I was_

_Dan 9:39pm: “I need to ask you something” in the most straight forward way with no sense of emotion phil_

_Phil 9:40pm: lmao sorry but I wanted to ask !!!_

_Phil 9:40pm: and u haven’t answered !!!!_

_Dan 9:41pm: god sorry ill have to think about it_

_Dan 9:41pm: a games night with your friends seems okay but with you is insufferable_

_Phil 9:42pm: WOW dan_

_Phil 9:42pm: if im not there you’ll go?_

_Dan 9:43pm: exactly_

_Phil 9:43pm: ok deal ill pick you up at 6pm next Friday and ill drop you off_

_Phil 9:44pm: no me in sight as soon as you get dropped off_

Dan tries to hold in a giggle as he steps up and excuses himself to go to bed. He uses some excuse that he’s really tired and he knows they don’t buy it. He _knows_ they know he had almost twelve hours sleep but if anyone asked it was the 5am start that knocked him about.

He makes his way back into his room and presses the button to call Phil. It takes a couple of rings before it’s answered.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Dan begins with a fake sigh.

“Careful.”

Dan rolls his eyes even though he knows Phil can’t see.

“I’ve been thinking that it probably wouldn’t be all too bad if you came to the games night. I might be able to stand you for a short amount of time.”

“Oh really now?” Phil responds, almost in the same tone as Dan. A tone that is a blatant deadpan but you can still hear the smile in his voice.

“Yeah, I think so. So if you would like to hang out with me and your friends on Friday you’d be more than welcome,” Dan says, picking at the loose thread on his sock.

“Good.”

“Good.”

There’s a few seconds silence until they both break out into a couple of laughs.

“You’re an idiot, Dan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to apologise for this being a short chapter but its actually kinda not??? i just feel like nothing really happened ???? idk i need to get out of the idea that someone monumental needs to happen in each chapter because that's not true lmfao
> 
> also as you can see, ive updated how many chapters are in this fic... i think that's going to be how many there is but knowing me (i did split one planned chapter of truth ran wild into four so....) it could change !


	13. chapter thirteen

The night that Dan would eventually meet Phil’s friends rolls around much more quickly than he would have enjoyed. He joked about being calm about this whole thing on the phone to Phil ever day this week but in reality, he was bricking it. He still is bricking it.

He wants to meet Phil’s friends. He wants to make friends with them and become a part of Phil’s life like that, just like how Phil has with his own friends but it’s a huge step. It’s a step in a direction Dan has never entered before and it’s horrifically daunting but Dan knows he’s going to suck it up and accept it because he wants Phil and he wants this.

They spoke on the phone in the morning about how Dan was going to make his own way over to Phil’s, even though Phil offered to pick him up because he didn’t want Dan walking in the dark. It didn’t make sense for Phil to drive all the way to Dan’s to drive back so Dan held his ground and refused a lift much to Phil’s discretion.

And that’s how Dan ended up standing in front of Phil’s flat door all nervous as hell. He doesn’t know why he’s literally shitting himself right now because Phil promised him that Dan would be the first to arrive and that he could settle before anyone else came. But this is a huge step and Dan wanted to force Phil’s friends to love him.

He rings the doorbell and before he has time to overthink this and run away into the night never to be seen again (he would never do that he loves likes Phil too much), the door swings open and Phil is standing there looking as handsome as ever with a smile on his face. He’s wearing a cute button-down with hearts scattered across it with ripped skinny jeans – ones that Dan told him would look so incredibly hot on him one day when they went shopping in Manchester together, and past Dan was fucking right.

“Hi, love.”

“Hi,” Dan grins back because how could he not? He steps into Phil’s apartment, taking off his shoes at the door in autopilot. Phil never said he didn’t want shoes on in his home but it’s a habit Dan can't get out of with his own flat. “How are you?”

“Stressed,” Phil offers matter of factly as he pads his way back into the kitchen. Dan wants to laugh, he really does but he knows he shouldn’t. It’s just kind of humorous seeing Phil THIS stressed out for a friendly gathering with games and snacks.

Dan follows him into the kitchen after paying much-needed attention to Thor who is desperately scratching at his calves because it’s been a few seconds since Dan arrived and he hasn’t given Thor the attention he deserved yet. He leans up against the kitchen counter that isn’t covered with Tesco’s carrier bags and listens to the quiet pitter-patter of Thor’s feet walking back into the lounge.

“Need any help?”

“Nah I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” Dan bites his lip as he asks a second time. He knows that Phil isn’t going to be mad at Dan for offering a hand but he doesn’t know that side of Phil yet, the stressed Phil. As always, Phil is the most wholesome man Dan has ever met, it shouldn’t surprise him that Phil looks up with the most genuine smile on his face and shakes his head.

“I guess you could help by pouring these crisps into a bowl?” Phil says as he nods towards one of the Tesco carrier bags.

“Sure.”

Dan gets to work, not that it requires all that much attention but Phil is stressed and wants it done so Dan’s going to put all his effort into it. Whilst he does that, Phil and he chatter about nothing really important, just about the type of games that Phil has planned to play with everyone tonight.

“So who’s coming tonight? Just so I can get my bearings.”

“Well, not many. My closest friend PJ and his girlfriend Sophie are probably going to turn up soon. Martyn and Cornelia are probably going to drop by at some point, they are always late. And I think Daisy and her girlfriend Charlotte may be coming?”

“Oh wow, a lot of people.”

“Yep,” Phil laughs. “Hence the stress.”

“You don’t need to be, it’s literally your friends,” Dan laughs back as he turns around to lean against the counter again, deciding that the bowls of crisps have been perfected to as much as his capability.

“Yeah but I’ve never had games night at my house before and it’s always amazing. I need to live up to that,” Phil sighs as he turns around to face Dan, biting his lip seemingly deep in thought.

Dan reaches out and grabs one of Phil’s hands in his own and then reaches again and grabs the other one to pull him closer, “It’ll be fine.”  
Phil looks down at their hands for a moment, obviously checking out the cute nail polish glistening on Dan’s nails, before he looks back up straight into Dan’s eyes.

He can feel Phil’s breath on his face but he tries to ignore it. This is a moment that doesn’t need to lead to making out or Dan’s intimate thoughts, but Dan can’t help it. He’s a simple man with simple needs.

“It’ll be fine Phil,” Dan repeats as he places an innocent kiss on Phil’s cheek and then a couple on his lips gently before pulling away, not letting go of his hands. He just lets them dangle in the air in between them as stares at Phil for a couple of seconds.

“You’re right.”

“I know.”

“And your nails are pretty.”

~~~~~

Phil’s friends started coming around far quicker than Dan had prepared for. He wasn’t mad about it, but he didn’t have half as much time with Phil that he wanted. He just had to remember that at some point his friends will leave and it will just be him and Phil and everything will be okay then.

Phil was right when he said that Martyn and Cornelia would be late because it’s been over an hour and they haven’t turned up yet. So it’s just Dan, Phil, Daisy, Charlotte, PJ and Sophie hanging out in the lounge. The crisps have gone down a treat and everyone is innocently chattering away amongst each other.

Dan greeted everyone at the door with Phil and hugged all of Phil’s friends after Phil did. It was weird but that’s Dan. He sat down beside PJ in the lounge whilst Sophie and Phil caught up on the other sofa away from them.

“So you’re who has been keeping Phil away from us huh?”

“Sorry about that,” Dan laughs as he plays with a loose thread in his ripped skinny jeans. “But I guess so?”

“No worries, I’m only kidding. It’s nice to see he’s finally found someone and you seem good for each other,” PJ smiles as he wraps his hand loosely around Dan’s knee and shakes, in a form of reassurance that he was joking.

“Really?”

“Are you kidding? Of course.”

“Thanks,” Dan mutters as he tries to control the blushing on his face. It doesn’t work. It never does. He can’t help himself when it comes to Phil and his feelings.

“I was going to ask some cliché first meeting questions like what you do for a living or how old are you but Phil didn’t shut up about you for a while, he still doesn’t, so I don’t need to ask those,” PJ laughs which only adds to the intensity of Dan’s blush. “So I’m going to ask if you’re happy.”

“Happy?” Dan tilts his head to the right and frowns.

“You know, with Phil.”

“Oh,” Dan laughs uncomfortably until he realises that laughing like THAT just looks weird and makes it seem like he isn’t happy with Phil so he stops himself. “Of course I am. More than happy actually.”

“Good because if his dumb ass hurts you, just let me know and I’ll give him a good seeing to,” PJ responds with no emotion in his voice. Dan would be scared of the seriousness of it all but PJ quickly followed it with a toothy smile and Dan’s anxiety eases.

“_So_, how about we get this games night up and running?” Phil jumps up from his seat and practically runs over to his cupboard full of board games. Before he even gets a response, he’s carrying out way too many board games for his arms to be able to carry and drops them onto the coffee table in front of Dan. “Which ones?”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Cornelia and-“

“They’re always late. If we keep waiting we’ll never play anything,” Sophie laughs as she sits down next to PJ on the same sofa as Dan.

Phil quickly sets up Scrabble after no one answered his question quickly enough and he decided to take it upon himself to pick the game. They quickly all sit with their partners so everyone can get involved and begin the game.

Dan soon finds out that Phil takes board games _very_ seriously. Not laughing at jokes that Dan makes about what rude words they can spell or asking if he can leave to get more snacks because they are more important. Dan finds it very endearing even if it is a little bit scary to see your boyfriend a tad serious and aggressive with board games.

It all pays off because Dan and Phil win at Scrabble by a long shot with no thanks to Dan. Dan gets to witness Phil calm down a little bit and share his post-win bliss by kissing Dan with a mixture of heat and gentleness. Dan tries not to blush when he hears all the cooing and awing from Phil’s friends.

They separate only because there’s a loud knock at the door and Phil stands up to get it, but not before groaning in annoyance into Dan’s mouth. Dan sees the roll of PJ’s eyes and the polite shove that Sophie gives him for the eye rolling – Dan puts a mental reminder in his head that Sophie is the best person here.

He watches Phil stand up and watches as he turns around and walks to the front door, out of view from the lounge. So Dan turns around and occupies his time for a few moments by looking at the few knick-knacks on his mantelpiece above the fire that’s currently not lit.

There’s a small Pikachu plushie that Dan remembers Phil going on and on about. He ordered it from Japan and it took just over a month to arrive and Phil wouldn’t stop talking about it up until it arrived and for a little bit afterwards. Dan found it endearing even if a little annoying.

He didn’t have time to look at much else, apart from noticing a few picture frames with a few seemingly embarrassing photos of Phil looking a lot younger than he does now and putting another mental reminder in his brain to ask and tease Phil about those photos later, before Phil returns into the lounge with two additional people in tow.

There’s a guy somehow _taller_ than Phil, wearing a button-up that Dan can only assume is from Lazy Oaf with a pattern like that matched with some simple black straight leg jeans. Attached to his arm, is a petite lady with bright red hair and a cutesy floaty black dress on.

Dan watches as they make their rounds saying hi to everyone and he offers a warm smile and a nod to them as they walk past him.

Phil doesn’t sit next to him though which he would have sulked about, but he watches Phil as he walks out of the lounge, assumedly to the bathroom, before he turns around back to Phil’s friends.

He catches eye contact with the guy who just arrived a few times and smiles awkwardly each time before he begins to stand up and make his way over to Dan. He reaches his hand out to shake Dan’s hand which he agrees to before he shuffles to the side so the man can sit down next to him.

“Martyn.”

“Dan,” He responds because he thinks that’s the right thing to do. Is that what people do when someone weirdly comes and sits next to you for a chat?

“So you’re Dan Howell, huh?”

“Yep,” Dan laughs awkwardly as he takes a sip of his awful mixture of whiskey and coke.

“Nice to meet you.”

“You too, Martyn,” Dan smiles because he isn’t lying. It is nice to meet Phil’s friends because it brings him more firmly into Phil’s life. He knows he’s here to stay if he meets his friends.

“It’s really interesting to meet any of Phil’s boyfriends – are you called that yet?”

Dan laughs again, both out of awkwardness and also because it’s kind of funny, “Yeah we are. He’s my boyfriend.”

“He never brings anyone home so this is a first.”

“Home?”

“Figuratively speaking obviously, I don’t live here, but he never brings anyone to show family and you’re the first!”

Dan almost chokes on his own saliva at the words family. There’s no family here?

“Family?”

“Well I am his brother, so I hope I’m family,” Martyn laughs as if he doesn’t understand why Dan’s so shocked. It takes a couple of seconds for it to register in Martyn’s brain, obviously, they are brothers from how long it takes for them to realise things alone, and then his smile drops slightly. Not completely but it falters a bit. “He didn’t tell you I was his brother did he?”

“Nope,” Dan gulps, surprising himself with how much he can actually speak now knowing he’s just met Phil’s fucking brother and he wasn’t aware of it. He isn’t mad. He doesn’t mind meeting Phil’s family. It’s a huge step definitely and one Dan would have liked to have been prepared for but he isn’t mad. He just wishes Phil warned him.

“He’s an idiot.”

“My words exactly,” Dan laughs dryly.

~~~~~

Phil eventually returns with a sheepish smile when he sees Martyn and Dan sat together. His smile turns even more sheepish and awkward when he sees the way both Martyn and Dan look at him, unamused and unimpressed.

They don’t even need to open their mouth before words start spewing out of Phil’s mouth quicker than anything else Dan has ever seen.

“Listen! I was going to say something but I didn’t want anyone to stress out!” Phil says with a slight giggle as he looks directly at Dan and places his hands up in the area as a sign of surrender. “It all worked out didn’t it?”

Dan doesn’t know whether he could hit or kiss Phil right now. He knows Dan would stress out unnecessarily if he knew any of Phil’s family were coming to this evening and Phil did him a favour. He guesses? But he still would have liked to have known.

“I could have said any of your secrets to your boyfriend here and you wouldn’t have been able to stop me!” Martyn jokes which only makes Phil blush and makes Dan laugh as a result.

“You could still tel-“

“No!”

“I mean I cou-“

“No!” Phil practically screams as he laughs and lunges forward to tackle his brother. “I don’t know what you are going to say to Dan but nope!”

“You embarrass yourself enough.”

“Shut up!”

“You do,” Dan cackles.

“Your boyfriend is right.”

“Shut UP!”

“Boys,” Cornelia says to interrupt the sibling play fight going on in front of Dan. Everyone halts the fighting and laughter and looks up at Cornelia. “Aren’t we supposed to be playing a game?”

“We were!” Martyn and Phil say at the exact same time which only makes everyone in the room laugh.

~~~~~

The rest of the games night goes down a treat, as expected. Dan gangs up with all of Phil’s friends to bully Phil and it works perfectly. Everyone decides to leave one after another, with Martyn and Cornelia being the last.

They say goodbye to Dan at the door and how they adore him and hope they see him again soon, which Dan doesn’t really hate. He would love to see them again, and more of Phil’s family.

He shuts the door behind them and walks back into Phil’s lounge to see Phil picking up empty glasses and a few plates from the coffee table. Dan shuffles over quickly to grab a couple of glasses off of Phil because this man really thought he could easily carry six glasses and three big dinner plates with dropping them?

“Good evening?”

“It was great actually,” Phil mutters as he struggles to pass a couple of the glasses to Dan whilst walking at the same time.

“Worth all the stress?”

“I don’t know why I was stressing. I think it was probably becau-“

“You didn’t tell me?” Dan finishes his sentence for him and when Phil nods, he knows he was guessing right. “Why didn’t you tell me? You know I would have been fine?”

“I just. I just didn’t want to seem to rush things because I actually really lo – appreciate you in my life and I don’t want you to go away just yet,” Phil chuckles, a bit awkwardly but Dan allows it because he is too busy thinking about the words Phil stopped himself from saying.

“I won’t,” Dan holds his hand out for Phil to grab and when their fingers interlock, he pulls Phil out of the kitchen and leads him into the hallway and in front of his bedroom door. “Unless you want me to?”

“I don’t,” Phil breathes as he closes any remaining gap in between them both and presses Dan into his bedroom door, kissing him gently on the lips – a parallel to the push against the door that happens at the exact same time.

Dan feels Phil’s hand wander out of his fingers, down his waist and resting on his hips momentarily until it leaves his body completely and fumbles with the door handle to open his bedroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love how i always find a way to not write any making out / smut scenes in any of my fics because i'm just not good at them yet lmfao. BUT i am working on it and i'm practising writing the first smut scene for this, so look forward to that soon ??
> 
> ive come to the conclusion that i really love this au and i dont want it to end so i have a couple one shots i have planned here and there that MAY be mutliple chapters on their own (so not one shots lmao). im just desperate for this au to not finish just yet


	14. chapter fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do u ever just up the rating for bants

“At least we didn’t fall asleep on your sofa again this time,” Dan laughs as he reaches for his phone out of his jeans pocket, after being thrown there during their steamy make out session the night before, to check the time. They have slept in but it is fine because neither of them have anything to do today. Thank you teacher training days that only apply to qualified teachers.

“We did leave Thor outside though so we lost on one thing.”

“I didn’t want him to see me naked!” Dan screeches in shock which earns a giggle from Phil

“One, you aren’t naked and two, he is a dog. A naked dog.”

“He’s used to it and I am not!” Dan replies as he lies back down on his side and wraps his arm loosely around Phil’s waist to cuddle. Phil automatically snakes his arm around Dan’s shoulders, like it’s the most natural thing for them to do.

“You’re still in your boxers though,” Phil replies matter of factly. And it is a matter of fact. He somehow lost his shirt in the making out session before bed.

“Shame for you,” Dan smirks which rewards him a push from Phil.

~~~~~

“Okay on a scale of one to ten, how excited are you to be bombarded by my friends soon?” Dan laughs as he puts the key in his front door to unlock it. It’s around midday now because after Dan teasing Phil, they came to a mutual decision to not leave the bed for a few more hours even though they decided to be at Dan’s to hang out with his friends long before midday. Dan didn’t text them to say they were going to be late but surely they understood.

“They aren’t that bad!”

Dan chuckles as he pushes the door open and walks in, with Phil closely following. “You’re going to regret saying that in a second.”

“Wh-“ Phil begins to ask as he takes his shoes off but it becomes apparent that he doesn’t need to finish asking that question because he opens his mouth and is quick to shut it once he hears the tiny stampede of feet coming from the lounge.

“Hi….”

“So you’ve returned my housewife to me?” Lucas laughs as he lifts his eyebrows up to look Phil up and down, something Dan will shout at him for later.

“Yeah,” Phil laughs awkwardly, still taking off his shoes. “He’s all yours.”

“I am not anyone’s property but my own,” Dan screeches but follows with a laugh, which they all join in with. Phil says his apology in wrapping his arm loosely around Dan’s hips and placing a light kiss on his cheek.

“As much as I love this, there’s too much romantic and sexual tension in this hallway. An ace gotta go!”

Dan hates that Lucas leaves because that means it’s just him and the two girls again. He loves them dearly but they are so annoying when it comes to Dan and his love life.

“So….” Amelia begins to say.

“So,” Dan replies mockingly which Amelia throws him a finger for.

“I was only going to ask you both what you’re going to do this evening!”

“We were going to come into the lounge and hang out if you promise to not be annoying.”

“Me? Annoying? Never!” Amelia laughs as she walks back into the lounge and her girlfriend shortly follows after giving Dan a look that looks like she’s apologising for what's going to go down once they walk through the doorway.

Dan looks at Phil for a brief second to gauge his emotions and he sees nothing but an innocent smile placed on his lips which reaches his eyes.

“So you’re good with hanging out with them for a while?” Dan says because he knows Phil looks okay but he’s giving him a quick last minute option to run away and hide in Dan’s room if they need to.

“As I said, your friends aren’t that bad. I can handle them,” Phil replies smiling, whilst walking in front of Dan to head towards the lounge. He doesn’t hesitate to intertwine their hands along the way.

Dan just wants to know where Phil gets this confidence from. It’s not a bad thing in the slightest but Dan’s friends are a lot. It’s equivalent to meeting his family because strictly speaking, this is Dan’s family. It’s all he has. His family don’t hate him but they don’t accidentally love his “lifestyle” either.

By the time Dan makes it into the lounge, which by the way isn’t too long after Phil does, Phil is already sitting down next to Amelia laughing about something Dan didn’t catch. Dan would whine and sulk usually for obviously not being involved in a conversation but he just sits on a free bean bag and allows them to talk. Phil allowed Dan to talk to his friends alone so maybe he should do the same?

He zones out after a while, coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t needed in this conversation. He just sits there and feels a soft tingly feeling in his stomach looking at the sight. Was that love? Definitely not. Well….

Truth be told, Dan isn’t sure. He’s never been in a long enough relationship for love to be felt so how would he know? This isn’t even a long relationship by anyone’s standards but he still feels something different, something much more intense than he has ever done. Is that love?

Maybe he’s just awfully fond of this man. Who wouldn’t be? Who wouldn’t feel the butterflies spreading across his stomach with purpose when they look at Phil? It’s perfectly normal for entering a new relationship and to feel the electric feel cascading across your entire body from a single look, right? It’s definitely not love to feel like someone is your soul mate after a few weeks of knowing them.

Dan blushes, calling bullshit in his own mind on that one. He looks up to ignore his thoughts to see Phil laughing with Amelia and Sophia, all squished up on one sofa that is definitely not meant for a fully grown over six-foot man and two tall girls but they all look comfortable with each other so it doesn’t really matter.

Dan truly does want to get involved with what they are laughing about but his brain just cannot stop overthinking and spiralling about love and all things Phil.

If it is love then he definitely isn’t going to tell anyone just yet. Love a couple of weeks into a relationship isn’t the type of clingy and needy Dan aspires to be.

Dan quickly gets jolted out of his own lovey dovey thoughts with a tap on his thigh, looking up to notice Phil is invading his personal space so much so that he can pinpoint every single freckle on his face and Dan has to hold every urge back so not to trace his finger to connect them all.

“You look tired, do you wanna go to your room?” Phil says with concern written all over his face and Dan loves him for it – no he doesn’t, Dan is just overly fond of him for it. Somewhere in between him zoning out and his coming back to Earth after said zoning out, Phil was reaching for his hand and pulling him up out of the sofa crease he made, not really waiting for Dan’s answer.

He isn’t exactly tired but he could do with some alone time with his boyfriend so he isn’t going to put up a fight to stay in the lounge any longer.

He follows Phil with a light spring in his step as they both head to Dan’s room, saying goodbye to Amelia and Sophia and closing the door behind themselves. Dan watches as Phil lies down on his side of the bed and feels nothing but warmth radiating through his body. He just knows from this moment alone that Phil IS that person for him. It doesn’t take an idiot (and Dan definitely isn’t one) to basically run to his bed to join Phil, cuddling up almost instantly on his side.

“This is nice,” Phil mutters as he wraps his arm around Dan’s body.

“It is.”

Dan arches his neck to place a gentle kiss on Phil’s lips and as he pulls away, he hesitates to fully leave Phil’s personal space by placing a few kisses in quick succession on his mouth again. This time he doesn’t get a chance to pull away because Phil’s leaning in and giving him something more than a few closed mouth kisses.

It almost happens too quickly for Dan to process it but one second Phil was on his side openly accepting the kisses and affection Dan is giving him and the next second, Phil is sliding in between Dan’s legs using his one arm as a crutch and the other cupping Dan’s cheek to deepen the kiss.

Dan couldn’t lie and say that kissing Phil wasn’t perfect. It’s the best thing Dan has ever experienced with another man, and he’s had sex. Just kissing someone who you know admires you and appreciates your existence just hits differently to a bunch of meaningless hookups and Dan basks himself in all of this attention.

Phil pulls away from the kiss and Dan reluctantly opens his eyes, trying not to whine so much at the lack of contact even if Phil is literally on top of him, to find Phil looking at him with so much warmth. All he sees is fondness and it’s almost enough to make love scatter throughout his body. He couldn’t feel anything less in this situation.

“You good?”

“Yep.”

Dan gasps as Phil reaches down and cups Dan’s hip, using his hold on him to drag their bodies as close as humanly possible. Phil’s mouth hovering inches away from Dan’s, and all Dan could think about is closing the remaining distance and taking Phil’s pretty lips into his own. He almost does but he notices Phil’s lips moving as if he is saying something but Dan doesn’t register until Phil stops speaking. He does notice the flushed red cheeks and Phil’s blown out irises, suddenly missing the glistening blue and green of Phil’s eyes but not too much because this new sight of Phil is incredibly intoxicating.

He could ask Phil to repeat himself but he just wants those lips on him now, not having the patience to wait for a second longer. Dan feels his breathing hitch as Phil’s lip come over his in a way that can somehow be described as both possessive and gentle, Dan decides working out how that can occur is a thought for later when he doesn’t have an incredibly beautiful man hovering over him.

For what feels like hours but seconds at the same time, Dan melts underneath Phil’s body that’s caging him, leaning into every single second of the kiss that Phil is placing upon Dan. He feels Phil’s hand stroking down Dan’s torso and resting back on his hips, playing with the hem of his shirt.

Phil pulls away from the kiss and Dan can't help but whimper slightly feeling like this is the end of an incredibly steamy make out session but then Phil opens his mouth and Dan definitely didn’t zone out this time.

“Can I take this off?” Phil breathes and Dan almost loses it. He swears if he was any younger he may have orgasmed just from how wrecked and ragged Phil’s voice is alone, but he does have _some_ self-control so instead nods eagerly as he bites his lip.

He watches as Phil wraps an arm around Dan’s back to lift him up, making taking his shirt off that easier and Dan could cry at how much Phil is taking care of him. He didn’t rip the shirt off with little care for Dan’s body, he made sure Dan was comfortable.

And then suddenly, Phil’s lips are back on Dan’s and Phil’s hand is back on Dan’s body. The feeling of Phil pressing his hands all over Dan’s tummy and hip area is nearly too much for him. He isn’t a teenage boy anymore but he still has some horniness inside him and Phil is Phil so who can blame him?

Phil’s lips leave his mouth and he peppers kisses down Dan’s jawline and onto the fleshy part of his neck. Dan would be lying if he said his mouth didn’t literally drop open in pleasure. He knows he’s a sucker for neck play from his first every mistake girlfriend all those years ago. He barely has time to process the kisses when Phil’s tongue left his mouth and the moan that left with it was probably the loudest noise Dan has ever elicited.

He would feel embarrassed, knowing how loud he usually is during sex but he doesn’t. He doesn’t have the chance because with his back arching to get closer to Phil and Phil grinds down into him in retaliation. It’s just so fucking erotic and Dan can’t even comprehend it, his mind wandering to what Phil’s tongue would feel like licking its way down his stomach and even lower.

He shudders at the thoughts his dick is sending his brain and that’s when Phil pulls way. It takes everything for him to not chase the movement with his hips. He takes it back, he literally is a horny teenager when it comes to Phil.

“Are y-you okay? You shuddered,” Phil pants and Dan would laugh realising Phil is just as turned on as he is but he hears the concern and worry in Phil’s voice and has to stop the laughter to reassure his boyfriend.

“I’m f-f-fine. Just feels good,” Dan somehow responds, hoping Phil can understand what he’s saying through the shaking wrecked voice that’s leaving his throat. He reaches his hand up to Phil’s cheek for good measure and strokes the quiff that’s now fallen off his face. “I promise I’m more than fine, Phil.”

“Okay. Good,” Phil responds as he begins to lean back in with a gentle smile on his face but Dan stops him with the palm of his hand on his chest, which just shoves a frown back onto Phil’s face.

“I would feel b-better if this shirt was, off though,” Dan giggles as the smile returns back onto his boyfriends face and Phil leans back into Dan’s ear to speak.

“If you want it off, do it for me.”

The whispers in his ear, ashamedly or not, go straight to Dan’s dick as he smirks, moving his hand from halting Phil’s movement from just a second ago, to the top button of Phil’s shirt. He looks up into Phil’s eyes as he unbuttons the first and second button and he blushes slightly because all he can see is …. fondness and pure love on Phil’s face and he just hopes he is looking at Phil the exact same way.

He’s quick to unbutton the rest of Phil’s shirt and Phil helps by shrugging it off his shoulders, throwing it somewhere at the end of the bed. Dan just looks, because how could he not? His boyfriend is beautiful.

They look at each other for a few more seconds before Phil leans in again and this time, Dan doesn’t stop him. He melts under Phil as if it’s the easiest thing in the world because it is. Dan runs his hands all over Phil’s chest, exploring this new part of his boyfriend that he has been exposed to. He feels so hot, so tempting to just discard all of their clothes right now to cut to the chase. He doesn’t because taking this slow is what Phil wanted and he is willing to go at whatever pace Phil wants tonight. If that makes topless making out only, he is happy with that.

Phil peppers a few dozen kisses around Dan’s face and Dan basks in it, he basks in the admiration and attention he is getting that he has never got from another person in his life. He’s never had more than a fuck and go session but every time he and Phil have been alone, he has felt well and truly cared for and he lives for it.

He finds Phil’s lips again and kisses him hard, hard enough for Phil to feel the intent behind it but soft enough for Phil to back out if he wants to. And when Phil returns the kiss with just as much passion, Dan moans into his mouth. He moans around Phil’s tongue as it enters his own and Dan couldn’t get enough. He’s almost addicted, no he is completely addicted, to the way Phil makes him feel and he wants it forever.

After only a minute, Dan pulls away reluctantly from Phil’s mouth because he feels like this is going too far for a couple who has no idea what the other wants, so instead he lazily mouths at Phil’s jaw in between words, “Whatever you want tonight, is fine with me. I’m up for anything, as long as it’s with you.”

Phil uses his nose to turn Dan’s face back to staring up at him and places a gentle but heated kiss on Dan’s lips. Slowly, Phil begins moving downward, reaching Dan’s neck and tonguing it slightly knowing Dan likes it. Phil opens his eyes as he allows his tongue to trail downward further along Dan’s collarbones and down one of his nipples. He keeps eye contact with Dan as he kisses every inch of Dan’s chest trailing down to his belly button. Dan would be lying if he didn’t almost cum from that alone.

“Can I?” Phil breathes in between a few kisses along Dan’s hip. As soon as Dan nods, he runs his mouth further down, managing to stroke down Dan’s already aching bulge in his pants, before lifting up to snake his hand around Dan’s lower back to pull his sweatpants (technically Phil’s that he borrowed the night before) and his boxers in one clean motion.

Dan swears he’s dreaming when he feels Phil pepper kisses along his shaft before his lips were returning to Dan’s. Phil mutters something about just wanting to see if Dan was hard and maybe if Dan wasn’t so fucking wrecked right now, he would have hit Phil for the teasing. But he is wrecked so he just whimpers into Phil’s mouth.

He whines even louder as Phil moves away again but he stops mouth wide open as he sees Phil rubbing his hand over his own, very clearly hard, erection in his pants. He could cry thinking about how Phil is clearly trying so hard to take care of Dan that he is neglecting his own needs but instead he just runs his hands down Phil’s sides stopping at the top of Phil’s own sweatpants, looping his fingers to touch his skin slightly underneath.

He waits until he gains eye contact from Phil and he receives a little nod as if Phil knows what he is asking, so Dan removes Phil’s trousers too. He leans up to meet Phil, head level with Phil’s stomach, and plants a few open-mouthed kisses along his underwear band. He feels Phil’s thighs shake under his hands that are wrapped around them so he stops teasing and slides his boxers down too.

Dan opens his mouth to say something, but then Phil is pushing him down gently back onto the bed and joining him even closer than before, lips more passionate than before likewise. They were both so desperate and clinging to one another and Dan loved it. Phil’s mouth moves in a rhythm against his and Dan sighs at the feeling, biting Phil’s bottom lip.

He couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t freaking out right now. His heart quite literally pounding in his ears and out of his chest, as he reaches up and tangles his fingers in Phil’s hair, receiving a low moan in response. Tugging lightly on the strands at the back of Phil’s head, Dan deepens the kiss and involuntarily jolts his hips into Phil’s, feeling just how turned on they made one another.

Dan couldn’t help it at this mouth and a fairly loud moan escapes his mouth due to the tension between them both, a moan that he is fairly sure Amelia and Sophia could have heard but he decides to throw that back in his head to worry about later.

When Phil runs his fingers down Dan’s neck and cups him there, Dan lets out a moan that he hadn’t meant to allow escape. He feels Phil smirk in between their kisses as he KNOWS Phil has just realised how much touching Dan’s neck turns him out. Using it to his advantage, Phil dances his fingers along Dan’s neck, creating soft tickles and it makes Dan a squirming mess underneath him. His head is so full and he’s pretty certain his dick has already started leaking at the pressure and he _knows_ Phil can feel that.

It’s almost like Phil can hear Dan’s thoughts because before Dan can process anything else, he feels a hand wrapping around his dick, but not all the way around like he knows Phil’s hand could reach. And that’s when he feels something warm against himself and he realises Phil has his hand wrapped around BOTH of them at the same time and he genuinely cannot hold back the moan that escapes his mouth at the sensation of Phil’s dick against his own.

He opens his eyes mid kiss (which he knows is weird but he can't bring himself to care right now) to see Phil’s entire body flushed red and slick with sweat and he knows, well he feels, his own body feeling much similar. He would be disgusted but then Phil’s thumb runs over his slit and all thoughts are thrown out of the window as he bucks his hips up in response.

“Oh my god,” Dan all but literally screams into Phil’s mouth and when he feels Phil moan straight back he knows he did the exact same to himself, which only makes Dan moan more. He’s already a moaning mess underneath Phil but hearing him pleasure himself is almost a step too far and he feels so achingly close.

Their bodies pressing together, Dan’s legs on either side of Phil, he arches his hips up in a way to create friction between them both. Phil drops his head from Dan’s lips to rest on his shoulder and Dan’s skins on fire from the breaths Phil is leaving there.

“I’m c-close,” Phil pants as he places rather wet kisses all over Dan’s shoulder, which Dan can’t bring himself to care about. All he hears is Phil’s ragged voice and all he feels is Phil’s body shaking on top of him. It’s all too much.

He presses his mouth against the side of Phil’s and offers a few kisses on his ear, sucking lightly on the tender skin there and then Phil lets out a harsh gasp as he comes undone above Dan.

Dan thinks if he wasn’t so close to orgasm right now, he would have basked in the sight of Phil so blissed out but the sight’s just too stunning that a shudder runs through Dan’s entire body. Phil’s body pushes down into Dan’s, pressing their naked skin together in a way that couldn’t feel anything BUT amazing to Dan. He feels a wetness in spirts all over his stomach and his body decides that is enough and he’s coming too.

He’s pretty sure he moans enough for the entire apartment block to hear the sinful things he’s doing in his own bedroom, his own flat, but he can’t bring himself to care at all. He probably won’t even care because he has his beautiful boyfriend falling apart above him and his hand is still wrapped firmly around his dick riding them both out of an orgasm.

He isn’t going to admit it but over-stimulation always lengthened Dan’s orgasm so Phil definitely wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“Jesus Christ, Dan, you are something,” Phil manages to pant out as he melts further into Dan’s body, with Dan deciding he can manage to wrap his hands around his boyfriend. “I’m glad we waited but shit, can we do that again in like fifteen minutes?”

Dan giggles as he breathes in and peppers a few kisses in Phil’s hair on the top of his head. He didn’t think he was going to get an orgasm today but he isn’t hating it. He feels the overwhelming desire to express his love to Phil growing stronger in his stomach and counts his blessings that he didn’t scream it out during sex.

Phil kisses Dan once on the shoulder before moving against Dan’s side to cuddle properly. Dan closes his eyes and finds sleep easy but that’s a given when you feel at home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi sorry i didnt post last week !!! if u read my other wip i mentioned that i just started uni again and have literally had no time to do anything but go to lectures eat and sleep 
> 
> BUT hopefully i feel better now and i had some time to write this. truth be told this chapter took the same as 2 usually do because smut isnt my forte... its probably not the best smut out there but i TRIED. please give me advice if u have any because i will honestly welcome it


	15. chapter fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im annoying and forgot to post yesterday

Dan could get used to this. He could get used to falling asleep completely naked with his boyfriend’s arm wrapped around his chest. He could get used to waking up to peppered kisses along his jawline and temple – a scrunched up face and a giggle in his ear is the perfect way to wake up as long as it’s with Phil.

“Are you going to pretend to be asleep for much longer?” Phil whispers in between each kiss along Dan’s face, allowing Dan to feel the lazy breath on his skin. “Because I would like a proper kiss from my boyfriend.”

Dan just groans in response before he opens just one of his eyes reluctantly to sneak a look at his boyfriend. It doesn’t take a genius for anyone to realise Phil is naked right now and Dan isn’t hating on admiring his exposed body for once. The pale skin against his collarbones are just inviting Dan to sink his teeth into if he wasn’t too sleepy, “I have morning breath.”

“Your breath always stinks.”

Upon hearing that, both of Dan’s eyes dart open and his hands b-line for Phil’s chest to push him away in a feigned annoyance. Once Phil’s on his back, Dan makes quick movement to climb on top of him, thighs bracketing each side of Phil’s hips and he runs his hands up Phil’s stomach to tickle him, stopping once he gets to Phil’s nipples knowing that that was a particularly sensitive part of Phil’s body from the night before.

He laughs, actually cackles throwing his head back in laughter, at the reaction he gets from Phil – the squeals and screams coming from Phil in between the fits of giggles could definitely be heard throughout the entire apartment block but who _really_ cares? The laughter is half laughing because Phil is laughing at being tickled but also half laughing because he’s so overwhelmed with fondness that that’s the only way he allows it to escape right now. He could not possibly sing his praises about being potentially in love with Phil right now.

“Sto- DAN!” Phil pants between giggles as he squirms underneath Dan. Dan loves to see it. This sight will never fail to knock the oxygen out of Dan’s lungs because his absolutely amazing boyfriend is really … underneath him like that. It would easily make all of Dan’s blood run down to his dick but he knows now isn’t the time. He just wants to appreciate his boyfriend without sex, or at least until his boyfriend is ready.

“You’re such an idiot,” Dan giggles as he brings his tickling fingers to a halt and rests them at Phil’s side, still caressing the skin lightly but not enough for it to tickle Phil. Dan isn’t a complete arsehole but he isn’t going to part with touching Phil either, any excuse.

“It’s not my fault I’m ticklish!” Phil responds with a fake gasp in annoyance but wraps his hand around Dan’s hips all the same. Dan can’t deny the rush of electricity he feels going through his entire body at that seemingly innocent touch, even if they are both naked and technically both of their dicks are in close proximity and definitely touching. Dan is not going to think about that right now, he is not.

Dan giggles and presses a chaste kiss on Phil’s lip before attempting to climb off Phil again, proving that Dan isn’t completely strong enough to be naked on top of his boyfriend without showing the consequences just yet. It didn’t work however because Phil snakes one of his hands upwards alongside Dan’s tummy, neck to Dan’s hair to pull him back down into the kiss.

There goes the electricity and shivers again, Dan thinks, as if they ever stopped.

Even though Dan was in control and had the power a few moments ago, he suddenly falls pliant above Phil and melts into the kiss entirely.

He feels Phil’s tongue lick against his lips and it takes everything for Dan to not moan and grind down. It just feels too good and too free at the same time and it’s almost too much. Dan thinks he could never get used to the feeling of his boyfriend kissing him, and wonders how it took all this long for Dan to find him. Imagine if Dan found Phil all those years ago when he desperately needed a good boyfriend in his life, instead of all those toxic ones.

All of his efforts to _not_ grind down almost fail until Phil pulls away again and Dan whines at the loss all too soon.

“I need to leave at some point.”

“Why?” Dan whines, throwing his hand back to look at the ceiling in his little temper tantrum. Phil only chuckles which doesn’t help Dan at all. He wants Phil to stay.

“Well you have work to do – before you interrupt me I know you do,” Phil explains, putting his finger over Dan’s mouth as he starts to interrupt him with the idea that he didn’t technically _need_ to do work at home today. Phil didn’t need to know he has a two thousand word essay due tonight. “And I have to shower because I smell. And I’m meeting family tonight.”

“You can have a shower here!”

“Not the point, love,” Phil laughs as he strokes Dan’s fringe out of his face. Dan leans into the touch before climbing off of Phil to join him lying down on the bed, curling up against his side. Straddling isn’t a vibe when Phil is going to leave soon.

Dan grumbles for a second. He knows he is being a baby about this because he has just spent well over twenty four hours with Phil but it’s not fair! He wants to spend all the time with his boyfriend, sue him! The thoughts going through his head just remind him all the more that he is completely in love with this man next to him, but he isn’t about to admit it. So he does what he is used to doing, using humour to deflect emotions.

“By family do you mean people you pass off as friends to me until I figure it out myself or actual family?”

“Hey!” Phil screams as he nudges Dan, before pulling Dan back straight away and nuzzling into his neck and placing a chaste kiss there. “I hate you so much.”

“You love me though,” Dan says and bites his lips almost instantly at the slip of the tongue.

“Not too sure,” Phil says after a few seconds too long in Dan’s book. Phil replied and didn’t run away though, which is always a bonus.

“Shut up.”

“I’m kidding! You know you could steal my glasses and stamp on them and I’d say thank you.”

“Ok, you sound like an annoying stan, what’s your Twitter?” Dan laughs.

“@danisstinky.”

“I stink good.”

“Don’t think it’s possible to stink GOOD.”

“Well I’m breaking out the norm,” Dan says as he wiggles his eyebrows, making Phil giggle – a sound that’s a blessing to Dan’s ears.

“I really do have to go soon though.”

“But WHYY_YYYyYYyyY_?” Dan whines. He knows he is definitely being stupid and needy now, but it’s making Phil laugh and honestly, Dan would do anything to hear that laugh time and time again.

“I have to meet my parents later today and I stink, I said.”

“No, you said I stink, not yourself.”

“Shut up,” Phil chuckles as he places a few more kisses onto Dan’s temple and cheekbones before unwrapping himself from Dan’s hold, or more so his hold of Dan because he _was_ the one who was cuddling Dan not the other way around. Dan has to hold back a groan at the loss of touch but watches as his very much naked boyfriend gets out of his bed to find his clothes that were for some completely unknown reason to Dan thrown across his entire room.

He watches with an innocent smile on his face as his eyes trace the way Phil’s hips contort when he bends down to pick up his boxers. He watches how the light sneaking through the crack in his curtains shine off of Phil’s back and how it almost glistens which doesn’t seem humanly possible.

He feels like such a creep watching his boyfriend get dressed and he has to hold back a whine once Phil eventually is fully clothed. It should be illegal for Phil to wear clothes around Dan. Just isn’t fair.

“Are you going to get up?” Phil laughs as he pockets his phone and walks over to Dan’s side of the bed. “Kinda want a kiss goodbye.”

“Lean in if you want one.”

Phil rolls his eyes but bends down all the same. He bends down just enough so his face is hovering over Dan’s and it takes all of Dan’s effort to just let him sit there – the annoying side of Dan coming out to make Phil beg for it. But instead, Dan pulls Phil in by the back of his neck, kissing him just as intensely as they did the night before.

The goodbyes at the door, once Dan had got completely clothed in joggers and a random shirt on the floor that he pretty sure is owned by Phil, are just as simple as Dan could imagine. He knows he is being a whiny baby for no reason because he will see Phil super soon, so he tries to hold back the annoyance when he says goodbye. He may be needy but Phil doesn’t need to know the extent of that yet.

“See you in a few days?” Phil says, still holding onto Dan’s hand as if he doesn’t actually want to leave. At least they are both on the same page about that, Dan doesn’t want Phil to leave either.

“Of course.”

Phil winks as he lets go of Dan’s hand, but instead of actually winking it’s more of a dramatic blink with both eyes.

“You blinked at me, Phil.”

“And wasn’t it endearing?” Phil smirks as he turns around to walk down the steps onto the street. Once he’s on the street, he turns back around to look at Dan. He looks like a lost puppy with his frown on his face.

“It wasn’t but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Bye, Dan,” Phil laughs as he offers Dan a little way before turning around properly to walk away.

Dan shuts the door behind him in a sulk and heads back into his room. He figured out from the walk to the door that absolutely no one is in the flat today so it’s just him and he really didn’t need to get fully clothed to say goodbye to Phil – but maybe the clothes were a good option when he was literally at the front door in the middle of Manchester.

As soon as he sits on his bed again, his mind reminds him of all the things they got up to in this bed the night before. The steamy kisses. The handjobs. Everything. He also gets reminded of how much he realised he loves Phil and suddenly the steaminess of the night before is disappearing to just anxiety.

Dan bites his lip as he grabs his phone and opens the text conversation with Amelia.

_Dan 11:37am: I think ive fucked it_

_Dan 11:37am: like proper fucked it_

_Amelia 11:40am: ok imma need you to be more specific because I could name a few things you’ve fucked lately_

_Dan 11:41am: now is not the time ame_

_Amelia 11:42am: sorry hit me with it_

_Dan 11:44am: I think I love Phil_

_Amelia 11:46am: im failing to see how that’s a bad thing….?_

_Dan 11:46am: unlike you, I don’t particularly want to move fast_

_Amelia 11:47am: rude but valid_

_Amelia 11:47am: I don’t think it’s a bad thing though? Even if you told him and he didn’t love you back right away, it's still nice to hear someone loves you_

_Dan 11:48am: you say that but_

_Dan 11:48am: you know im not about to tell him unless I 100% know_

_Amelia 11:50am: but whyyyyyyyyyy just tell him_

_Dan 11:51am: what if he gets freaked out by it and runs away_

_Amelia 11:52am: this is phil we’re talking about_

Dan looks away from his phone for a second because Amelia does have a point, not that he’d ever admit that to her. It is Phil they are talking about. Phil is the most understanding person Dan knows and he isn’t exactly going to run away if Dan tells him about his feelings and doesn’t feel the same. He’ll probably find it really cute and go from there.

It would be okay, in theory, if Dan told Phil how he felt.

_Amelia 11:57am: I know ur sat thinking about how right I am so thank u <3_

_Dan 11:58am: shut up I was not_

_Amelia 12:00pm: ok man who loves his boyfriend_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> also just a heads up, next week there will be no chapter because im at VIDCON MEETING PHIL ?????????? so im giving myself a week off but i will be back the following saturday to post the next chapter <3 just think of it as a lil hiatus so i can get my shit together to prepare to meet the king himself


	16. chapter sixteen

Work for Dan used to probably be one of his favourite pastimes. It wasn’t like working was completely enjoyable for Dan, but it was something. And now his life has been taken over by a raven haired tall boy who he calls his boyfriend and that suddenly has taken over as his number one pastime. His friends aren’t too bad either, but Dan isn’t going to tell them that.

He doesn’t want Amelia’s head to get any bigger with compliments.

The last few weeks have been a blur of going to work, speaking to Rosa about nothing in particular and going home to hang out with his friends or Phil or everyone all together. That’s not the worst thing imaginable because like it was said, Dan’s favourite pastime _used_ to be work and his new favourite pastime is hanging out with his friends or his boyfriend, so strictly speaking, the last few weeks come month have been perfect for Dan.

He has yet to announce his relationship, although it is blossoming completely because he wants it all to himself. His friends know because there would have been no way on Earth to avoid telling them because he lives with them, even if Amelia and Sophia technically don’t live with him, but they’ve yet to make it official on Facebook or to the outside world.

Not that that was a bad thing, because it wasn’t like either Dan nor Phil were embarrassed by each other in any way shape or form, at least Dan could say he wasn’t, but they just wanted to keep it to themselves for a little while longer. Which is normal for a couple to do, there’s no time limit for when you have to make your relationship public.

This is why as soon as he enters the staff room at work, he sits down next to Rosa with a huge smile on his face. He hasn’t told her yet because honestly, speaking about his personal life in a working environment is just asking for trouble. It either gets spread around the teaching staff, which isn’t what Dan exactly wants because he doesn’t speak to anyone here apart from Rosa and Mr Clarkson so other teachers don’t necessarily need to know, or a student will overhear the conversation and it will be the talk of the school.

Not that Dan really cares because being gay is okay. He’s told himself that enough times that no amount of stupid teasing from high school kids would affect him.

But fundamentally, being the talk of the school would not be a vibe that Dan would appreciate.

“What are you smiling about?” Rosa says in the middle of scoffing half of her sandwich in her mouth. Dan loves that about her, she literally has no shame and will act completely herself around absolutely everyone.

“Nothing,” Dan says through his wide toothy grin, knocking his knee against hers which only generates a low groan from her mouth.

“Dan you cannot say it’s nothing when you literally never talk into work with that much of a grin.”

“Maybe I’m just high on life.”

“Gross,” Rosa snorts because she was never one for Dan’s bullshit comments. “Seriously? You good?”

“I’m more than good.”

“Because?”

“Hm, I don’t know.. Maybe it’s because my boyfriend is showing me all the love in the world.”

As soon as the word boyfriend leaves his mouth, he can’t help but giggle at her reaction. Her sandwich flew out of her hands quicker than Dan could actually process. Her one hand ran through her hair frantically and the other was smacking at Dan’s thigh with the urge to tell him more, he can only assume.

“Huh?! Are you and Phil finally getting your heads out of your arses enough to realise you both fancy each other?!”

“Who’s the one with the weird phrases now?” Dan laughs.

“Shut up! Answer my question!”

“I guess,” Dan continues to struggle through laughter. He didn’t expect to see Rosa be so excited for Dan to have a boyfriend. He’s only known her for just over a month, maybe as long as he has known Phil, so her reaction is truly wild in contrast to his long term friends.

“I _guess_?! Clearly, you did,” Rosa laughs back at him, patting at his thigh before moving back to her sandwich. “I expect so much information soon but for now, I’m happy for you Dan.”

“Really?”

“Yep. You deserve it.”

Dan sighs as he leans backwards onto the sofa to rest properly, not that he needs it at all but he just wants a moment to rest before the bell rings and he knows he needs to go to his lesson.

He would have never said he would get friends other than Amelia, Sophia and Lucas because they have only ever been the people in the whole world to accept Dan truly and solely as himself. But he does think Rosa may be a friend for life and he would LOVE to introduce her to all of his non-work friends one day.

“You know,” Rosa says in between bites of her sandwich, forcing Dan out of his thought process. “I thought I had such a huge crush on you when I started working here.”

Dan could laugh. But maybe it isn’t the right moment when someone lays their feelings on the line for you. So, he just lets her continue.

“I thought I did, but I think I just wanted to be your friend. I never really had friends throughout education and I think I just wanted to be your friend so bad I confused it with a crush.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, but I realised it wasn’t and I, in fact, realised how annoying you are.”

“Shut up! I’m not annoying!”

“Maybe that was too far, you’re a good egg.”

~~~~~

Dan’s day of work is to be expected. He sat in the staff room making jokes with Rosa until the bell rang for the first lesson of the day. He had a lesson with some year seven’s about the Crusaders – a topic Dan actually learnt alongside the class because he had no fucking clue what it was about other than that it was a religious war between the eleventh and the seventeenth century. He had another lesson with Mr Clarkson and sixth formers (his favourite class because they are technically adults) about ancient Roman witchcraft and the similarities between magic and religion in those times because they were both very closely linked. He had lunch with Rosa and then a couple of lessons in the afternoon about nothing he really found interesting.

He used to say he loved all areas of history but he soon came to realise that you can definitely have niches and not every historian likes all areas of history. It’s completely okay to feel like that so Dan openly loves to rant about how much he dislikes anything that isn’t before the Christian era or anything that isn’t at least after world war two.

Amelia still can’t get her head around the fact that Dan did a history degree and only likes two very small niches.

The walk home isn’t too thrilling. Dan just put his earphones in each ear and listened to a playlist he made with songs that _slap_ according to his own brain, heading to Starbucks along the way to grab a coffee for himself (and a cake or two but that’s no one's business but his own).

Waiting in the queue for his drink, Dan gets to thinking about what everyone around him could have done with their days whilst he was sitting in a stuffy classroom with massively hormonal teenagers. He knows that Phil had an early morning start with the rest of the evening off, but he was planning on visiting family nearby on the evening. He knows that Amelia had the day off and was probably spending that in his lounge with Lucas, knowing that he will have to say hi to them for a little while once he gets back.

Dan does arrive home in no time, caramel macchiato still hot and slightly depleted from drinking it along the way home. There’s a slight spring in his step for no apparent reason, his brain excusing that on the fact he’s just in a good place right now and not the fact that he is on a coffee high.

Dan attempts to open their front door of the flat to find it is on the lock from the inside. It’s literally never locked because people, namely his friend's not random strangers, come and go all the time. It’s especially never locked when Dan is due home because Lucas always complains about having to get up and open the door for him.

Dan wastes no time balancing his coffee in a light grip in his hand to grab his phone out of his pocket to text Lucas.

_Dan 4:02pm: the door ???????_

_Lucas 4:03pm: what about it_

_Dan 4:03pm: it’s locked???_

_Lucas 4:05pm: what do u want me to do about it pal_

_Dan 4:05pm: idk open it maybe????_

_Lucas 4:06pm: im not home we vacated_

_Dan 4:06pm: vacated???????_

He puts his phone firmly in his grip alongside the coffee, surprisingly cooled down enough for Dan to hold it in his hand not protected by the cardboard cover. He hesitates slightly before pressing his ear against the door in an attempt to hear what the fuck is going on inside.

There’s a quiet hum of music which is weird considering Lucas said everyone had vacated. It’s not quiet enough to be not heard but it’s not loud enough to annoy neighbours into thinking there’s a house party going on. It’s definitely not the music for a house party anyway, it’s slow guitar music.

This did nothing but cause an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. The knot forming heavy out of nerves. But Dan didn’t have to wait long until he grabs his phone again to text Lucas, feeling annoyed at the lack of texts coming from his phone in his hand.

_Dan 4:08pm: lucas if u don’t reply I swear_

_Lucas 4:08pm: chill im not at home_

_Lucas 4:08pm: just knock_

Knock?????? If everyone has apparently vacated then who the fuck is he knocking for?

He does what he’s told anyway because that’s all he can do in this situation, thinking about the possibilities on what the hell is going on right now. Clearly, everyone knows apart from him.

Dan didn’t have much time at all to allow his anxiety to fester at what Lucas has been saying, or lack thereof before he hears the lock on the other side of the door being messed with and a light giggle. It sounds like Amelia but a different Amelia to who usually laughs at him.

The door is suddenly being opened a touch, enough to allow Dan to be greeted with Amelia and a shy smile.

“Hi, Dan.”

“Can I come into my own home now?” Dan says whilst rolling his eyes. He isn’t mad. He just wants to go into his bedroom and not be in the freezing cold December air any longer. Dan doesn’t even notice that Amelia is wearing a cute little pastel pink dress with a bow tie choker in the same colour. “And why are you dressed all fancy?”

“Oh, this?” Amelia opens the door a little further to show off her dress in full display, running her hand around her waist and resting them on her hips to show off a little bit more. “This old thing? It’s just casual wear Danny.”

Dan rolls his eyes anyway because the sound of her voice and the smirk placed on her face does not suggest that that outfit is casual wear.

“Can I come in?”

“Wait for a second,” Amelia huffs, resting her hand back on the door frame. “I’ve been told to wait until quarter past and I don’t want to make anyone upset.”

“Who told you to not let me into my own home? Who would be upset?”

“No one.”

The sound of her voice and the smirk on her face, again suggesting that she’s fibbing and the answer is not no one but Dan doesn’t roll his eyes this time.

“It’s almost a quarter past, can’t I just come in now?”

Amelia takes her hand off the door frame enough to look at her rose gold watch on her wrist and with a hum, she nudges past Dan cheerfully and pats him on his back, “You’re right. Have a good night, Daniel.”

Dan does roll his eyes this time because she’s behind him casually walking away with the same spring in her step that he had just a couple moments ago and he can get away with being a little bit annoyed at her when she isn’t looking.

He steps into his hallway, closing the front door behind himself and toeing off his shoes and shrugging off his jacket. He finally takes his earphones out of his ears that were inappropriately blasting a random rap song about sex in his ears the entire time and that’s when he can still hear the gentle hum of guitar music.

He looks around quickly and notices the sound is coming from his room. He frowns as he heads towards his door, a little bit angry that someone has been in his private space without his permission. He’s thinking about the pissed off text he’s going to send the group chat about invading his private safe space as he pushes open his bedroom door an-

That’s when it all clicks. He could laugh at how much of an idiot he is to not automatically think this is the case.

He grows his head back with a cackle and hears a little giggle coming from the middle of his room.

Phil is there. Standing head to toe in a simple black outfit. A black button-down shirt French tucked into his ripped black skinny jeans with colourful socks on his feet. Dan could barely hide the lip bite as he locks eyes with his boyfriend in front of him, who's greeting him with a sly smirk. Dan just _knows_ that Phil is wearing all black today because Dan has mentioned on several occasions how much he finds it attractive on Phil.

“Hi,” Dan giggles, taking in a few steps forward so he can embrace his boyfriend. He feels Phil’s huffed giggle against his neck and his hands snaking around his back and rubbing innocent circles against his shoulder blades.

Phil pulls away after placing a few delicate kisses on the side of Dan’s face and that’s when it all becomes apparent to Dan. He takes in his surroundings completely.

The main big lights are turned off and the curtains are drawn and the only lighting in his bedroom is being produced by fairy lights and candles. There are fairy lights draped around every corner of the room and the light shines a faint warm white colour throughout the room. There are strings of lights threaded over Dan’s headboard, in between all the curves of the metal bars. There are strings of lights over the chest of drawers and blutaced on the walls.

The areas that don’t have light from the fairy lights are lit up are candles. There aren’t as many candles in Dan’s room as there are fairy lights and Dan thinks that’s primarily due to the fact they WILL both forget about the candles and wake up to a burnt down home. But they are dotted around the room, mainly on the bedside tables either side of Dan’s bed and on the chest of drawers aren’t occupied by the fairy lights.

There’s a bouquet of flowers on his bedside table too, in a vase that Dan doesn’t recognise assuming Phil bought that for him too. They shimmer elegantly through the flickering lights of the candles on the bedside table and look absolutely beautiful.

By the time Dan has taken in all of his surroundings, he notices Phil taking pride place on his side of Dan’s bed that has far too many pillows and blankets for any human to use.

“Wow.”

“That’s all you’re going to say,” Phil giggles, as he uses his fingers to usher Dan onto the bed alongside him. So Dan does, blushing slightly as he doesn’t mess about and all but literally runs onto the bed with his boyfriend.

Dan lies down backwards to greet Phil with a little kiss on his forehead and wraps his arms around his boyfriend before squeezing.  
He didn’t know what he did to deserve this treatment from Phil. He didn’t know what he did to deserve Phil point blank if he’s being honest but here he is with Phil. With the love of his life.

Nope.

He is not about to say that today.

“What’s all this in aid of?”

“Huh?” Phil replies as he idly runs his hand through Dan’s hair. Dan can’t help but lean into the touch and hum as Phil laces his fingers through chunks of Dan’s hair to separate the curls.

“You cannot say HUH when my entire room is lit up all pretty. What did your completely undeserving boyfriend do to deserve this wonderful treatment?” Dan giggles as he shuffles even closer into Phil’s embrace if that was even possible.

“It’s literally a few fairy lights from Primark and some tealights, Dan. You’re obviously deserving of that.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t actually, inform me.”

Dan gently pushes back and lifts himself up so he can look at his boyfriend properly in the eyes. He sees nothing but what he assumes is love and warmth in those pearly blue eyes and it makes Dan’s heart burst.

“No one has ever treated me like this before,” Dan whispers. He would think that Phil didn’t hear him if it wasn’t for the softening gaze on Phil’s face and the series of kisses being peppered all over the accessible skin on Dan’s body. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me for treating you how you deserve, Dan,” Phil whispers right back after kissing his forehead a couple of times, pulling away with a soft grin reaching ear to ear.

Dan smiles right back before dropping down on his side again and resting his head against Phil’s chest.

The three words that Dan desperately wants to say are bubbling in his chest and almost bursting at the seams. He thinks about it momentarily for the few seconds of silence they have between them. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to say. It wouldn’t at all. If he told Phil that he loves him and Phil didn’t say it back, it would be okay. Phil wouldn’t run away. Phil would stay, right? He isn’t a complete arsehole.

He wants to say it, so badly. He almost does but then Phil opens his mouth and Dan shuts his.

“Amelia let me in,” Phil says as he plays with the hem of Dan’s shirt, almost like he didn’t want to look in Dan’s eyes. “She’s always bloody here, huh?”

Dan laughs at that. It’s easier to laugh than think about the love bubbling inside of him so he just laughs.

“Where does she _even_ live?”

“Not here,” Dan giggles as he grabs the hand Phil is using to play with the hem of Dan’s shirt and intertwines their fingers like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Phil lets out a huge breath, almost like he was holding it the entire time Dan was in the room, “I’m glad you liked me surprising you. I know you didn’t say it but I can tell.”

Dan grins, pressing a kiss to Phil’s lips, once twice and three times. Phil lets out a soft noise into Dan’s mouth, encouraging Dan to move his tongue along his boyfriend’s bottom lip.

Dan feels like he could do this forever. Just kissing Phil.

In practice, he couldn’t. Kissing is tiring and your jaw aches after a few minutes because of the movement. But in theory, he could.

Dan feels Phil smile against the kiss and he pulls back with heavy-lidded eyes.

All he sees is wide eyes filled with arousal and the most beautiful smile spreading across Phil’s face. It makes Dan want to weep. He really could. He wouldn’t be the first person to cry over how pretty their boyfriend is.

The need to cry is quickly replaced with the overwhelming bursting at the seams desire to admire and love his boyfriend. It is almost too much. Dan has to bite his own lip to stop those words blurting out of his mouth again.

Phil cups Dan’s cheek with one of his hands and runs his thumb across the place Dan just knows his rosy patch is making an appearance and leans in to kiss Dan’s lips again. He allows Phil’s tongue in like it’s easy and they lose themselves into the kiss they are sharing for a few minutes.

His breath hazy and his head spinning from the arousal of the kiss. The exact same bubbling admiration rising up in his chest. He lifts himself up to sit on Phil’s lap but sitting still because he is not about to take the next step just yet.

He moans into the kiss which usually signals that he is getting exhausted and overwhelmed with the making out session and Phil begins slowing down, almost pulling away from Dan.

“I love you,” Dan breaths across Phil’s lips as they separate for a second. He feels his entire body halt as he realises his error and his eyes widen as he looks at the frown on Phil’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! sorry for the hiatus last weekend, as i said i was in london for vidcon so i had no way to upload a chapter. my dumbass brain didnt think to upload it before i left or when i got home but that's honestly just me.
> 
> i hope you liked this chapter <3 im sorry it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and i promised no angst but this was literally the only place i could end the chapter. i ended up writing way too much and i thought i'd have to separate some and it only made sense to end it here. i promise all is good in muw au land <3


	17. chapter seventeen

Dan’s eyes widen as he looks into Phil’s frowning face. He sees the creases growing on his forehead and he thinks he’s completely fucked this up.

It was only for a brief second until the frowning turned into a shy smile and Phil leans in to place a single kiss on Dan’s lips.

He’s beyond confused so he doesn’t return it and he just stares blankly at the confusing facial expressions on Phil’s face.

“What did you say?”

“U-uhh. It does-not ma-tter,” Dan manages to stutter out, stuttering both because of the overwhelming make out session that they just had and out of nerves because his stupid mouth slipping up.

“No, Dan,” Phil smiles, running his thumb back and forth across Dan’s cheek. It takes everything for Dan to not cry and lean into the touch, so he closes his eyes instead. “Please say it again.”

Dan swallows. This could only go one of two ways. The first way is that Dan repeats himself and Phil says it back and they both know they love each other. The second being Dan repeating himself and Phil pushing him off his body and running away, leaving Dan heartbroken.

Dan swallows again before opening his mouth, ignoring that it has gone dry from nerves and opens his eyes, “I love you.”

There’s another mound of silence but it is not as deafening as the last. It’s flooded with smiles and light giggles under Phil’s breath and a couple of dozen kisses on Dan’s cheekbones. He isn’t sure he understands what's going on but the anxiety in his chest is depleting and he thinks that’s a good thing.

“I love you too, Dan.”

That.

That is definitely something that sucks any remaining anxiety from his body and throws it away, no anxiety remaining in his system.

“What?” Dan laughs wetly, in shock that THAT actually happened.

“I love you too.”

“What was that?”

“Shut up, you can hear, Dan,” Phil rolls his eyes and looks back at Dan fondly, holding either side of his face with either hand.

“I know but I can’t believe it,” Dan breaths, resting his forehead against Phil’s because he’s suddenly really tired after the overwhelming anxiety he had endured.

“Who wouldn’t love you if you allowed them?”

~~~~~

Sleep comes easily for Dan, and he assumes it came equally as easy for Phil too.

It’s crazy that if you had told Dan a year ago that a year from now he would be lying in bed half asleep with a boyfriend who loves him just as much as he loves them, he would laugh and call you an idiot.

But it’s happening. It’s real for Dan. Dan loves Phil and Phil loves Dan.

As much as sleep came easily, waking up came, as usual, in a groan and a refusal of his eyes opening. He is so used to waking up at ridiculously early times for working in a high school that his weekends meet the same early fate.

He hates it but he also doesn’t hate it when he falls asleep next to Phil. Falling asleep next to Phil means waking up next to Phil and Dan can’t hate that. Dan can’t hate that he gets to wake up next to the love of his life and witness Phil in a completely carefree state.

Phil wasn’t the most carefree and calm person awake but Dan came to the conclusion that Phil definitely was that asleep.

Phil begins to move and as a result, Dan is pulled from his thoughts. This means that Dan gets to watch Phil get comfortable and be asleep for a little while longer. He watches as Phil sighs deeply and shuffles closer in Dan’s arms. Phil’s always fidgeting in some way in his sleep in a tiny way. His side rises and falls calmly as he breathes. He watches as Phil’s nose scrunches up and his bottom lip drops leaving his mouth open. It makes Dan want to weep because his heart is so full just from the sight.

If Phil wasn’t wrapped up in Dan’s arms right now, he would for sure roll over to grab his phone to save his cute memory but instead, it’s just permanently ingrained into his brain – arguably a way better way to remember Phil.

Phil stretches out and with a yawn, he begins to squeeze his eyes together and wake up. With waking up, Phil snuffles even closer into Dan’s chest and threads his fingers through Dan’s almost subconsciously. He lazily and sleepily opens his eyes and locks eyes with Dan’s, smiling softly.

“Morning, sleepy,” Dan says through a grin, placing a kiss on the top of Phil’s head.

“Were you watching me sleep?”

“You’re just so pretty.”

“That’s so gay,” Phil groans as he presses his face in between Dan’s arm and his own, Dan assumes that he is hiding his face from the blush that he saw slowly forming on his cheeks, even if Phil tries to argue that it’s because of the bright light seeping through the curtains and the fairy lights they forgot to turn off.

“It’s funny that, I’m gay,” Dan chuckles as he gets more comfortable in his own bed, wrapping his arms more tightly around Phil, gathering that they were not leaving their bed anytime soon.

“Disgusting. Get that away from me right now.”

“If you insist,” Dan sighs dramatically as he pretends to worm his hands away from Phil’s naked torso. He hears a loud whine and feels a hand tightly wrap around his bicep to halt his movement. “I thought you wanted me to get away from you?”

“Maybe I’m gay too.”

Dan gasps loudly and he practically hears Phil roll his eyes at how extra Dan is being, “What? Well, I never!”

There’s a comfortable silence for a while, where Phil’s hand tangles with Dan’s almost like its nothing and Dan’s free hand runs up and down the back of Phil’s head, messing with the short hair there.

“How did I get anyone so beautiful to love me?” Dan whispers against the air, quiet enough that Dan thinks that Phil didn’t hear him because he didn’t respond. It takes him a few moments to reply which is the only way Dan knows he heard him.

“You’re the one to talk,” Phil whispers right back, running his hand up and down the naked skin on Dan’s tummy. “You’re so pretty.”

Dan breathes out a giggle when Phil’s fingertips run down from his belly button to his waistband and back up again. Dan’s glad for the position they are in right now because Phil cannot see his blushing. He is pretty sure he has never blushed so much because of simple words anyone has said before, but Phil just knows the words to affect him.

“I can’t wait to love you more.”

If Dan wasn’t crimson red all over his face and chest due to the blushing that Phil has already caused, there’s no doubt that he’s looking like a ripe tomato now. Fuck Phil and his words.

“I can’t wait to get to know you more and grow with you.”

Fuck there it is.

“I know you’re blushing right now but I’m far too sleepy to tease you for it so I’m just going to worsen it in the hopes that it will stick around until I gain the energy to move.”

Dan chuckles, noticing that he moves Phil up and down with the movement of his chest. He is going to groan and moan over Phil being cute and making him blush as a result but in reality, he doesn’t hate it. He thrives off of the pillow talk that Phil offers him.

“I’ve never felt like this before, Dan. I’m going, to be honest here,” Phil mumbles, shuffling slightly which Dan assumes is him compromising refusing to move and get comfortable. “At least not this quickly.”

“What do you mean?” Dan manages to croak out. If it wasn’t this silent and wasn’t this much of a soft and serious conversation, he knows Phil would have mocked him for the croakiness and Dan would have shoved him in annoyance and thrown a pillow at his head, making Phil whine in response.

“You know what I mean. I’ve been in like – what? – maybe five relationships in my adult life and I’ve never been able to accurately say I love someone. I’ve just never felt it. I’ve felt fondness and admiration and lust but not how I feel about you, Dan,” Phil whispers as he plays with a loose string in the waistband of Dan’s boxers. “I just know I feel different about you and that’s definitely a good thing.”

Dan doesn’t know what to say. He knows what he should say but that doesn’t mean like something he wants to say right now. It feels artificial and not right. So he swallows the lump in his throat that is preventing him from expressing his true emotions and tries to scream them into the void that is Dan’s room in the dark early morning anyway.

“I think I get what you mean,” The first part of the sentence almost silent due to the dryness of his mouth after not speaking for so long. “I mean, I can’t say I’ve ever felt like this but I’ve also never been in a situation close.” At this, he feels Phil squeeze his hand in reassurance. He knows that Phil is ready to support and love Dan through the traumatic experience of only being worthy of a quick fuck in the first part of his sexual life. He could cry just knowing this. “But the way I just KNEW that this was love. Is a lot for me.”

“Do you want to know how I figured out I loved you?”

Dan doesn’t respond but he’s sure this was a rhetorical question anyway. He just exhales and prepares for Phil’s answers which are no doubt going to overwhelm him with love like Phil argues he deserves.

“When I saw you in the park with Amelia and Sophia and you seemed so upset that I was with another person. I felt so hurt that I betrayed your trust and I thought I lost you. The thought of losing you almost broke me there and then, Dan.”

Dan definitely remembers this. He definitely remembers minding his own business in the park and literally feeling his heart fall out of his arsehole in fear that the guy he had a crush on was with another guy. It’s not like he has a brilliant track record of dating people and then

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I should have told you about my job beforehand,” Phil replies.

“But I get why you didn’t.”

“I’m glad that you know now though. People I care about knowing isn’t half as bad as my brain was telling me.”

Dan smirks as he opens his mouth sounding as innocent as possible, “You care about me?”

“I literally just said I love you and made you cum yesterday, and you’re doubting that I care about you.”

They spend the next few moments giggling, with Phil’s hand tickling Dan’s tummy. Then silence ensues before Phil opens his mouth again.  
“I think it was fate that we met in that gay bar all those weeks ago, Dan.” Oh no. “I think it was fate that you had a weird guy talking to you that made you uncomfortable enough for me to see from across the room.” Fuck. “I think it was fate that you allowed me to walk you home and we exchanged numbers.” Don’t. “I really just think that you’re m-“

“Nope,” Dan almost screams, wrapping his hand around Phil’s mouth to stop him from finishing the sentence. He doesn’t entirely know what was going to come out of Phil’s mouth but he knows he isn’t ready to know just yet. “I need to go pee.”

To say Dan gets up in a panic and literally bolts to his ensuite before even looking in Phil’s general direction is an understatement. He didn’t divert his gaze anywhere close to Phil but he knows that Phil would have had a wrinkling forehead due to the intense frown he would be displaying on that face that definitely didn’t deserve to feel any level of uneasiness.

That’s why when he locks the door behind him and rests the palm of his hands against the sink basin, he looks up in the mirror in front of him and sighs.

He’s stupid.

He knows he’s stupid.

But it’s something that still scares him. How is it that he has found the most perfect human being to love who loves him back and isn’t treating him like shit? How is it that Phil wants to love him and call him that word that Dan isn’t even going to think about?

He’s _such_ an idiot.

Running his hand through his hair in a nervous tic, he looks at himself properly. He notices a series of love bites under his jawline that show warmth and beauty in a relationship. They show trust and a willingness to try. They show that the relationship obviously isn’t perfect but it’s a good and healthy one and that’s enough sometimes.

He sees the remanence of the flush that Phil had caused him not too long ago and all of the words flow back to him. Phil loves him.

Phil. Loves. Him.

Phil loves him and is willing to try to show Dan that for as long as he will let him. As soon as those thoughts spin through Dan’s head, he sighs. Because he really is a huge idiot.

He quickly turns on the tap to release the running water and splashes some on his face, not caring about how most of the water is technically going past his face and straight onto the floor behind him. By the time he comes back in here, it will hopefully be dry and less of a tripping hazard.

He pats dry his face, muttering something about how he’s an idiot under his breath and looks at himself one final time in the mirror. This time, he can only see someone who is loved.

He unlocks the bathroom door and heads back into his room.

“You didn’t flush,” Phil says, almost like a statement and almost like a question at the same time. Dan isn’t sure. The only thing Dan is sure about is that there’s a frown deep set on his boyfriends face that he doesn’t want there anymore.

“Sorry.”

He lifts the duvet allowing enough space for him to climb back in and does so, scooting his body alongside his boyfriends like he was a few minutes ago and ignores Phil muttering you’re cold get away from me under his breath.

“Why are you saying sorry?” Phil whispers, almost inaudible, as he places a delicate kiss on Dan’s head. The kiss, although an innocent peck, sends shivers down Dan’s spine and gives him butterflies all over again like it is the first time Phil has ever kissed him. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“I ran out.”

“To pee.”

“We both know I didn’t pee, Phil.”

“Okay,” Phil says. And for a while, Dan thinks that’s all he’s going to say, but his hand still around Dan’s waist when before it was running back and forth stroking Dan’s midriff like he is a cat. “Is everything all good?”

“Perfect,” Dan says through a smile and it’s a genuine one this time. He lifts his head up to place a kiss on Phil’s lips just to reaffirm that belief. When he opens his eyes, he meets Phil’s and doesn’t look away this time. “It’s just, as I’ve said… no one has ever loved me like this before and it’s overwhelming sometimes.”

“So you had a mild panic because of what I said?”

“I think so,” Dan bites his lip as he tears his eyes away from Phil for a split second before returning the eye contact again. He sees the frown disappearing on Phil’s face and a shy smile. He hates that a frown was even there in the first place.

“I get it.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Phil says, tightening his grip around Dan’s waist and automatically pulling him closer. “It’s scary for me too.”

Dan hums a question in response.

“I’ve never felt this either and it’s scary thinking about the idea that you’re it for me, Dan. That doesn’t take away from the fact I think that – don’t let your anxiety think I’m saying I don’t love you because I do – but it’s terrifying.”

“Yeah,” Dan says because that’s all he can say. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how to express his emotions because he’s never gone through this before, not even close.

“But it is okay,” Phil continues as he uses one of his hands to worm his hand into the hold of Dan’s and squeezing. “We got this and we can get through it together.”

Dan squeezes right back when he smiles the widest toothy grin he thinks he has ever produced after a mild panic attack, “We do got this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry for the amount of fluff in this chapter but it was important to the story :D
> 
> i hope you are all well and had a fab week <3


	18. chapter eighteen

“So you’re saying you will not do some sexy time with me right now?”

Dan rolls his eyes at the question. He loves his boyfriend so much but Jesus Christ, if he doesn’t stop saying sexy time, he will break up with him. At least he threatens that anyway. He isn’t going to ever break up with him because that would be ridiculous.

“No, I will not.”

“But Dan, sexy time.”

“No.”

“Sexy time.”

“Nu-uh.”

“Care to think about sexy time.”

“I haven’t.”

“Why not sexy time?”

“I literally cannot believe yo-“

“Sexy time.”

“Maybe if you stopped saying sexy time,” Dan says as he playfully kicks Phil from across the room. Phil’s sitting on the edge of Dan’s bed, having just came from the bathroom after sleeping over, and Dan’s sitting on his desk chair, trying to get university work done before Phil returned to annoy him. He didn’t get much done because Phil’s already back in front of him frowning.

“Maybe if you gave me sexy time, I’d stop saying sexy time.”

“Shut up,” Dan laughs as he spins back around to face his desk again but is swiftly moved back to face Phil with a quick spin on the chair with Phil’s hand.

Phil frowns even more, forcing his bottom lip to pucker out and wobble. Dan really wants to groan and roll his eyes but he waits it out, he knows that Phil always jokingly tries to make himself cry to get his own way and he wants to see how far his boyfriend will go.

“Stop trying to mak-“

“Just let me prove a point, Dan.”

Dan rolls his eyes fondly but doesn’t take his eyes off of Phil whilst the narrows his eyes and tries to make his bottom lip wobble some more. It’s kind of endearing. Dan knows that Phil is obviously joking and would not be pressuring Dan into sex if he doesn’t want to. Phil knows that Dan is just teasing. It’s just a matter of how far each of them will go before the other cracks and gives in.

A few minutes pass where Phil is failing massively to make himself cry and Dan trying really hard to not laugh at his boyfriend’s attempts, but it is getting difficult. So Dan leaps forward out of his seat at almost lightning speed, not really knowing where that came from, and suddenly grabs Phil and pushes him backwards onto the bed to straddle him, “Stop it.”

Phil laughs, the kind of laugh where it’s almost forced out of him at the impact of the fall, and rolls his hips upwards – a way that Dan /knows/ is how Phil is trying to wind him up.

“Give me sexy time, Dan.”

“On a Sunday?” Dan gasps excessively. “In this house of the Lord?”

“You’re all gay here, Dan. I think Jesus is outta here.”

“Wow, harsh,” Dan whispers as he presses a kiss on Phil’s lips. It wasn’t deep and passionate by any means but it still lingers for a few moments before Dan tries to pull away chuckling a breath out. He doesn’t get to move away far though because he finds Phil’s arms snaking their way around his torso and holding him in his place, straddling Phil’s hips.

Dan pushes Phil’s fallen quiff off of his forehead, it’s how your hair looks after not styling it all day and relaxing instead. Phil always tells him that he doesn’t have time to style his hair because Dan is too busy being annoying for him to get anything done but Dan knows that’s an excuse. He kisses his forehead anyway like that’s his only job. He kisses all the way down his face, and just at the corner of his mouth.

He doesn’t intend for today to lead to anything, knowing Phil doesn’t either not if Dan doesn’t want it equally as much. So he just kisses, kisses and kisses until he’s pretty sure all of Phil’s accessible skin is smothered in kisses from the jaw up. He knows that Phil isn’t going to push but he pulls Dan down so he’s no longer hovering anyway.

He feels Phil smile against his mouth.

Their bodies are completely flush in absolutely every which way, lips attached in the exact same way their hips are. Phil kisses back equally as hard, with insistent swipes of the tongue and Phil’s teeth nibbling at Dan’s bottom lip until they're both breathless and Dan feels himself falling onto his side with Phil following suit.

Phil's leg is slung over Dan’s hip and his arms around Dan's neck, holding him close while Dan's hands roam across his chest, up to his side - anywhere that Dan has access to with the exception of still being fully dressed.

“You’re so pretty,” Dan mumbles as his eyes follow his hands running down Phil’s chest. He doesn’t mean to let it out but he can never usually keep his cool around Phil. It’s incredibly overwhelming because it’s almost as if he’s aware of every inch of Phil, and every inch of Phil that he’s yet to discover.

He can feel the pressure of Dan’s legs between his own and the smell of Phil’s vanilla scented shampoo – the shampoo that Phil has now left in Dan’s ensuite because apparently, Phil is capable of going home for days at a time now. Dan tries to ignore the feeling of Phil’s erection, hard and needing attention, in his trousers pressing up against his thigh but it’s hard to when he matches Phil’s want with his own, straining against his boxers.

"Touch me?" Dan says, and it comes out a bit wrong. He doesn’t want it to sound like a demand at all, but he also wants Phil to touch him so badly. A sudden change of heart from a few moments ago. Maybe not a drastic change though, because Dan was only joking when he said he didn’t want anything and he’s pretty sure they both know that otherwise, they wouldn’t be in /this/ situation right now.

But he doesn’t want Phil to think that he is being forced into anything. Because he isn’t. At all. He’s definitely overthinking it because there have been many occasions when either have them have not wanted sex or _sexy time_ and the other has completely backed off and been fine with it. No hard feelings. But he just wants Phil to know for sure, to reaffirm the belief that Dan wants this.

So he lets his hand fall from Phil’s waist and trails it up laying feather light kisses along Phil’s arm as he follows it upwards to find his hand with his own. He intertwines their fingers and leads Phil to the waistband of his trousers.

“Touch me,” Dan repeats as he holds back a whine. They’ve given a few handjobs here and there but it’s still kind of embarrassing and horribly intimate and definitely something Dan isn’t used to so he ducks his head.

Phil instantly tilts Dan’s head back up and looks him straight in the eyes and Dan can’t help but blush. There's way more intimacy than Dan has ever expected in the eye contact someone makes with you when you’re about to fuck or do _something_ remotely intimate and sexual and it just makes Dan blush even more.

“Are you…” Phil trails off with a tiny smirk on his face. A smirk that captivates Dan instantly. “Are you saying you want sexy time?”

Dan almost groans there and then, and not in the best way for this moment. He suddenly wants to not be hard and desperate right now so he can whine about how annoying his boyfriend is but instead all he can do is roll his eyes and fight off every urge to laugh at his boyfriends annoying jokes.

“I really don’t want to have an argument with you right now.”

“Why would we argue?” Phil laughs.

“Becau-“

Dan’s never had an embarrassing sex story before. He’s never had someone walk in in the middle of sex before and he’s never had someone who wasn’t meant to see his dick see his dick. He’s never had had an embarrassing story like that until now because he hears the front door slam behind a gaggle of laughter.

He can almost hear the shoes kicking off and the shoes banging against the wall that he shares with the hallway.

He knows that he hears the bang against his door when someone whom he can only assume is Amelia coming through his bedroom door. He also knows that he hears his bedroom door swing open and the cackle that comes from behind a hand covered mouth.

“Oh,” Amelia says as she tries to hold back a laugh but fails desperately as she lets out giggles upon giggles anyway. “Didn’t mean to disturb this.”

“You don’t even live here Ame,” Dan almost yelps as he turns around and tries to hide whatever the fuck is going on. It doesn’t work though because Amelia has already clearly seen everything and knows Dan and Phil are both in incredibly incriminating positions even if they are kind of fully dressed. He feels like the rising blush on his face that he can literally feel himself is telling enough. He isn’t sure about Phil.

“I didn’t mean to see!”

“Sure, you could’ve knocked.”

“Okay. Sorry. Jesus,” Amelia laughs as she closes the door behind her and suddenly she’s gone and Dan can feel himself coming back to earth despite the embarrassment.

He turns his head back around to face Phil and is kind of glad to see that Dan isn’t the only one blushing incredibly. It’s silence for a few moments, maybe a few minutes Dan isn’t really sure, and they both break out into a fit of giggles at the same time.

Dan feels all of the oxygen be knocked out of his body as he watches Phil laugh at such a close proximity. He’s just too beautiful for words, he thinks to himself as his giggles slow down. But he watches the smile on Phil’s face set and he suddenly realises why people love watching the sun set so much.

“What?” Phil manages to speak through the remaining giggles escaping his mouth and all Dan can think about is how his face wrinkles when he tries to hold in a laugh. He reaches up and cups Phil’s cheek almost in awe and pretends to not want to cry over the feeling of Phil leaning into his touch.

“I just like looking at you.”

“That’s kind of creepy,” Phil smirks as his eyes turn soft looking straight into Dan’s own so he knows he doesn’t mean it.

“Sue me if I think you’re pretty,” Dan mumbles as he places a delicate kiss on the corner of his boyfriend’s lips. And then another one on his actual lips for good measure.

Phil grabs for Dan's free hand, locking their fingers together. Dan presses their clasped hands against the bed, rubbing his thumb over Phil's index finger. It’s stupid that he has to stop himself from squirming under such an intimate touch but he fails anyway and he knows Phil sees it when he chuckles under his breath and presses a kiss on the top of Dan’s forehead.

Dan can’t help but feel so intensely in love and safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi... i am sorry for not posting for a few weeks but the truth is ive been very unwell and once i got better, i lost all my energy for writing and only just got back into it. this chapter isnt perfect but i wanted to post something and im SURE normal posting will resume next week lmao because i literally have nothing to do whilst the uk is in lockdown aaa !


	19. chapter nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for being ia for so long :(

The weekend quickly comes to an end, far more quickly than what Dan would like. He isn’t too mad because he doesn’t _hate_ his job but he would be lying if he said he didn’t prefer hanging out with Phil more than hanging out with a classroom full of twenty five teenagers.

It’s not the end of the world though because his entire Monday has been replaced with being stuck in Mr Clarkson’s class with the final years. After all, they have to quickly finish their assignments before their Christmas break and have been taken off timetable as a result, so it is not all bad. It could be worse, he thinks to himself as he shuffles back onto his seat to get more comfortable before the class officially came in for the day.

He sneaks his phone out every now and again throughout the hour hoping to pass time. Again, it’s not like he hates his job but he would definitely prefer to be spending time with Phil or at least, he will definitely accept the second best thing of texting his boyfriend.

_Phil 9:45am: did you get to work okay?_

_Dan 9:45am: bloody hell phil its high school not the army_

_Phil 9:46am: hmmmm seems like the same thing_

_Phil 10:01am: what are you doing_

_Phil 10:02am: im bored_

_Dan 10:10am: im not really doing anything because ive been assigned final years who have to work in relative silence to finish their coursework_

_Dan 10:11am: im just sat at the back looking pretty_

_Phil 10:14am: hmmm I can imagine that’s a difficult job for you_

Dan has to hold back a snigger, but he’s sure he fails in doing so because he notices a few of the students in the back row (just a metre or so in front of him) jolting their heads up in confusion for a couple of seconds before continuing with their work.

_Dan 10:16am: shut up im pretty_

_Phil 10:17am: not convinced_

_Phil 10:17am: prove it_

_Dan 10:18am: shut up you KNOW im pretty you don’t need convincing_

Dan sees a hand rise out of the corner of his eye and looks quickly to see Mr Clarkson dealing with another student so he knows he has to deal with this one. He pockets his phone in his butt pocket and walks over to the nervous looking girl who is _surely_ biting a hole in her lip with how intensely she’s gnawing on it.

“Hi, do you need any help?”

“Yeah… actually.. I’m stuck.”

“I’m sure we can fix that!” Dan exclaims with the feigned encouragement he had learnt from watching Mr Clarkson do the exact same time and time again over his teacher training.

~~~~~

Dealing with the student takes a lot longer than he would have thought. It wasn’t just an issue about a pen not working or a simple spelling question, it was an entire research based question. A question that Dan wasn’t technically qualified for but was more than capable of answering so he took it upon himself to find out the answer for her.

It takes him the best part of an hour to return to the back of the classroom in his plastic seat and desk, looking like a student entirely due to his own surroundings. He doesn’t miss the small nod of approval and thumbs up he gets from Mr Clarkson, however, who clearly approves of Dan’s actions.

He blushes lightly whilst dragging his phone out of his pocket again to reply to urgent and important matters.

_Phil 10:19am: I don’t actually :/_

_Phil 10:37am: did I overstep by joking about you being not pretty im sorry :[_

_Phil 11:01am: you know u are the prettiest because it is true <3_

Dan, yet again, wants to giggle at what he’s reading on his dimly lit phone but instead settles for a smirk and a more intense blush than the one Mr Clarkson embarrassed him with five seconds prior because he really shouldn’t get caught on his phone in a classroom full of students. That would be embarrassing.

He writes out a quick text message stating the issue that made him not reply quickly and that he _did_ know he was pretty and he didn’t take Phil’s jokes seriously so Phil didn’t have to worry and once he’s done that, the bell insinuating that it’s break time for the students (and more so for the teachers too, they deserve a break).

He hears the funnelling of the teenagers running out of the room, chitchatting about this and that – nothing important to Dan, it’s probably none of his business anyway – and he can almost hear himself sighing in relief at the silence in the classroom. Even though it was technically silence before, the students are gone and it makes a whole new silence.

“Daniel,” Dan hears, snapping him from his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“You know I’m trained in seeing when people are on their phone under the table right?”

Fuck.

“Oh. Sorry,” Dan bites his lip, beginning to put his phone in his pocket before Mr Clarkson begins speaking again to halt his movements.

“No need to apologise, you aren’t one of my students,” he laughs as he takes a seat on top of the desk Dan is sitting at. “But I just don’t want the kids seeing, you see? I already have enough trouble with them rebelling against the school rules, I don’t need them seeing my assistant teacher rebelling against the rules too.”

“Right,” Dan mutters, hand still on his phone. “I’ll stop, sorry again.”

He sees the smirk on Mr Clarkson’s face when he apologises again after being told to not bother but if Mr Clarkson was going to make a comment about it, he doesn’t make it obvious and if Dan was going to apologise again for apologising, he manages to stop himself before the words leave his mouth. He’s just sitting there hand on his phone and mouth held open.

“It’s nice to see you happy again though.”

“Again?”

“You first joined in August, before the year started, and I haven’t seen you this happy. That’s all I mean.”

“Oh,” Dan says, at a loss of what to do other than to just sit there open mouth, almost doe eyed.

“As long as she makes you happy, that’s all that matters,” Mr Clarkson winks at him as he lifts himself up off of the desk and begins to make his way back to his own with a small spring in his step.

Dan almost wants to laugh. He doesn’t know if it is appropriate to laugh in this type of situation so he just tries to hold it in and looks blankly at Mr Clarkson, “What makes you think it’s-“

“Call it teachers intuition,” Mr Clarkson laughs as he sits back down on his desk chair, seemingly miles away from Dan. “Seriously though, does she make you happy?”

There’s no way Dan can avoid the pronouns in question now. He shouldn’t find it terrifying but Mr Clarkson is a bulky, stereotypically manly man and Dan just isn’t. He doesn’t mean to stereotype a specific type of person but he just reminds him of the people at school who were strictly against his very existence.

He swallows the anxiety left in his throat and comes to the conclusion that he cannot really _not_ say anything. If he tries to get around it then he is going to slip up when it comes to pronouns and maybe that isn’t the best option. So he swallows once again and realises that he just needs to bite the bullet.

“Uh, yeah, actually he makes me very happy. Happiest I’ve been in a long while. You know when you aren’t actively looking for something because you think your life is fine but then you get that person in your life and suddenly you realised you were missing something?”

Dan would laugh usually at the accidentally ramble he forces upon an innocent person but he /knows/ that he is extra nervous right now. He doesn’t have the time nor the energy /nor/ the ability to make jokes about how uncomfortable he is with awkward social interactions, especially when those awkward social interactions talk about something so personal.

“Oh no, I get you. I’m glad you’ve found that Dan,” Mr Clarkson smiles as he sorts out his files on his desk, looking like he didn’t even notice or is aware of the pronoun mention in what Dan said. Why isn’t he picking up on it? Is he just incredibly homophobic and hoping that Dan made a typo verbally? Dan isn’t sure. “My husband and I feel the exact same way actually. It’s nice isn’t it?”

Oh. That is why. That makes a lot of sense as to why Mr Clarkson didn’t actually bat an eyelid at the idea of Dan dating someone who used he/him pronouns. He has a husband. Mr Clarkson is gay himself, or at least LGBTQ+ - not wanting to assume entirely.

“I’m glad you have that too,” Dan replies, at a loss of not really knowing how to respond to that. Not that it is a necessarily shocking thing to reply to, just that Dan _is_ a bit awkward.

“What’s his name?”

“Phil. And you?”

“Oscar.”

Oscar and Tom, at least that’s what he thinks Mr Clarkson’s first name is. He never really asked, ever and always referred to him as Mr Clarkson even at home.

“Yeah we got married last year but we’ve been dating for almost a decade. Obviously, marriage wasn’t a thing that was on the cards until very recently,” Mr Clarkson laughs, looking up at Dan with a sparkle in his eye. Something Dan recognises from Amelia’s eyes when she speaks about Sophia and vice versa. “Is marriage on the cards for you and Phil then?”

Dan notices a smirk on Mr Clarkson’s face and he wants to roll his eyes, he would if it was any of his friends and not technically his boss. So he clears his throat of the lump that has stayed there throughout this entire conversation and replies as calmly as he can, “Uh, no. Not yet anyway. It’s only been a month or so officially and marriage definitely isn’t on the cards just yet.”

“But do you think it’ll happen? Because what’s the point in dating if you don’t see a future, right?”

“I would hope so,” Dan smiles, knowing for the first time in this conversation that he isn’t anxious at all about his response. He knows he is telling the truth completely and he isn’t scared of it. “I would like to think maybe in a year or so we’d be thinking about it.”

“Does he know that?”

“We haven’t exactly had that conversation, no,” Dan bites his lip. Maybe he’s overthinking it entirely but he _would_ happily marry Phil if either of them asked. Maybe it’s too early but he already knows the answer if Phil ever asked him and that isn’t something he would want to admit just now.

~~~~~

The rest of the day goes by with a blur, just like most of Dan’s work days do because he usually just sits at the back of the classroom until someone needs his help. So, he doesn’t really do much day to day. He’s learnt how to zone out for hours on end.

He’s packing his bag up in the staff room when someone he hasn’t seen in a few days comes skipping through, “Roza!”

“Daniel,” Roza sings as she walks up to him, placing her elbow on his shoulder and smiling away.

“Ew, no. Dan please,” Dan says as he crinkles his face in disgust. He’s never really liked Daniel. It always reminds him of

“Sorry Daniel,” Roza smirks. “How are we this fine afternoon?”

“I’m good actually, and you?”

“I’m good because Miss Roza over here, has a date.”

“A date?” Dan raises his eyebrow turning to look at her. “With who?”

“You don’t know them. They work in the cafeteria, where you never go.”

“I do go to the cafeteria sometimes!” Dan protests.

“Okay sure,” Roza laughs, as she removes her elbow from Dan’s shoulder and plays with her brunette hair nervously. “But his name is Jason and he isn’t too bad looking.”

“Isn’t too bad looking?” Dan mocks her which results in hands on his side and a push, pushing him away from Roza.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Unfortunately I do.”

Roza laughs and begins to ramble about this and that and Dan is only barely listening (he feels bad about it but he is easily distracted and he can't help that) because his phone dings quietly in his rucksack. He has a habit now of checking his phone as soon as he gets a notification – usually, he would ignore it for probably hours on end but now he has a boyfriend, he constantly wants to reply to him.

His thought process doesn’t fail him because it’s a text from Phil.

_Phil 3:02pm: im outside (:_

_Dan 3:02pm: I didn’t know you were picking me up today?_

_Phil 3:03pm: no I didn’t plan to but I wanted to treat you_

_Dan 3:03pm: treat me huh?_

_Phil 3:03pm: shut up and come outside already_

Dan sighs a chuckle before putting his phone back in his ass pocket. He says a quick goodbye to Roza, giving her one of those squeeze hugs that makes the recipient groan because all of their insides are being squished. He rolls his eyes when he hears Roza telling him to not do anything she wouldn’t do whilst he closes the door behind him to go meet his boyfriend outside the school gates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, apologises for being so ia for a while. lockdown is not serving well for my mental health and is making my depression flair up :/ havent had the energy to write for a while.
> 
> UNTIL yesterday and i wrote this chapter and also planned out my new fic that will be posting soon, i think. its really important to me so im hesitant but im sure it'll be nice <3 im excited to start posting it but im going to maybe wait until i have a few chapters prepared so i can not have to stress about writing each week like i do currently with muw
> 
> i am thinking once this is complete, i may take a break and maybe focus on my New fic for a while before i come back to this and write the phil pov one shot i promised. i have it all planned out but obviously havent wrote it yet. it WILL come tho <3


	20. chapter twenty

He didn’t have to look all too far because as soon as he exits the school gates, his eyes divert him from the masses of children chatting and catching up (maybe a few fights too but Dan’s off the clock, he isn’t going to break up a fight between two sixteen year old boys right now) and fall almost instantly to his boyfriend, whose resting up against his mini walking to what seems like a parent and their child.

As Dan walks closer he just about manages to catch the end of the conversation before the parent laughs, resting her hand on Phil’s shoulder casually before walking away with her daughter. Dan raises his eyebrows in question at Phil as soon as Phil manages to spot him – which isn’t hard by any means because Dan is right in front of him now.

“I know her from high school. She was in my year,” Phil shrugs off as he lifts himself up off the bonnet of his car and walks – well kind of runs, it’s a mixture of the two – to the passenger side of the car to open the car door for Dan. He ignores the _Phil I can open my own car door I have arms_ with a shush before continuing to explain and holding the car door open for Dan to get inside. “She asked who I was waiting for, thinking I had a kid in her year too or something and I said my boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend?” Dan coos. He can truly never get over Phil calling him that. Truth be told, he wouldn’t expect anyone to call him that, ever.

“That’s what you are,” Phil laughs as he closes the door behind Dan, who is now sitting in the passenger seat ready to go back home.

Dan buckles his seat belt and almost without meaning to, turns his head to the cramped back seat of the car, noticing a rather large picnic basket. He turns to Phil, who is now buckling his own seatbelt, with raised eyebrows before Phil offers nothing but a giggle, “We’re going on a picnic?”

“That was meant to be a surprise!”

“Oh, so when you stop driving outside a park or whatever and not my house, I wasn’t meant to question it?”

“I had a plan, Dan!”

Dan rolls his eyes and chuckles as he sits back in his seat, allowing Phil to begin their journey. After a few moments, they arrive at a park, as Dan could have guessed. He’s been to this park a few times, but it looks different in Autumn rather than the middle of summer with his friends. Maybe it would have a completely different meaning to him after visiting with his boyfriend.

“We’re here!” Phil says excitedly which Dan can’t help smiling widely at. He turns to Phil and sees the widest grin on his face, he’s never seen it before. He didn’t think he could smile anymore.

“What are we doing?”

“We’re going to have a picnic, Daniel,” Phil deadpans, whilst turning around to grab the picnic basket behind them. “I thought it would be fun!”

“In the middle of autumn? It’s cold, Phil.”

“Yeah that’s why I have a blanket, idiot,” Phil rolls his eyes as he opens his car door and steps out. Before he closes the door behind him, he turns back to Dan and tilts his head towards Dan’s door to wordlessly tell him to get the fuck out. Dan throws his head back and laughs before actually listening to Phil, because he knows he’s joking but he doesn’t actually want to upset Phil.

He steps out and it doesn’t actually feel all that cold. It’s definitely coat weather but he can make do with a small jacket and maybe a cuddle from his boyfriend. That’ll do.

He follows as Phil walks, well skips, over to a small secluded area that Dan assumes he preplanned. Phil never does things by half. His eyes are sparkling as he turns around to Dan with a smile before laying out a blanket and some pillows.

Phil takes out the neatly folded blanket, one that is known as Dan’s at Phil’s house from the top of the basket and gently lays it out across the grass, and throwing the pillows on top for Dan and Phil to rest on.

“Ta-da!” Phil exclaims as he marvels at his masterpiece and Dan can’t help but laugh. “Perfect picnic for two!”

They take their seats on the ground, and Dan expects it to be hard and rough, but Phil’s obviously planned it out – hence the pillows.

“What did you prepare?”

“You mean,” Phil says as he bats Dan’s hands away from prying into the basket and wiggles his eyebrows. “What did Tesco’s Finest prepare?”

“So you’re saying, you didn’t care enough to make everything from scratch for me?”

Dan inhales a sharp breath as he places his hand over his heart in feigned disbelief before giggling and leaning over to place a small but delicate kiss onto Phil’s cheek, “Thank you.”

“I told you, it’s okay. It’s nothing,” Phil blushes as he puts a few packs of sushi onto the blanket in front of them. There must be a few different kinds in front of Dan before he is done – avocado and cucumber nori, spicy tuna rolls, avocado California rolls and salmon maki.

He watches as Phil brings out plates, one for each of them, and some chopsticks (and a fork because they both know that whilst it is standard to eat sushi with chopsticks, Phil is less than capable) before taking one of the plates and reaching out to grab some sushi. Phil bats his hand away again and loads up a plate for him, full of Dan’s favourite options and handing it to him with a beaming smile.

Further proving that Phil knows him better than anyone, he lets Phil finish gathering his own food before leaning forward and kissing him; it’s slow and soft, and it encompasses everything Dan was trying to articulate, “Love you.”

“I love you, too,” Phil says simply. Phil’s not one for lots of words or needless exclamations of love and devotion. For him, it’s enough to simply know that Dan is his as he is Dan’s.

“Thank you for this.”

“Dan, it’s truly nothing,” Phil rolls his eyes before leaning in to place another kiss on Dan’s lips. So what if they were the overly affectionate couple? Sue them. “I’m just happy you let me do it for you.”

Dan responds with another kiss. It’s nothing extremely passionate and nothing is heated up but it’s enough to send a tingle down Dan’s spine.

When they pull away, however, he hears the hushed whispers of a few children. He vaguely recognises the hushed voices because he’s heard them one too many times at work. So he reluctantly pulls away and turns his head in the direction of the whispers.

“Hi, Mr Howell,” one of the children stutters, clearly nervous. Dan just thanks the stars that he hasn’t stumbled across one of the more homophobic and toxic children because clearly if he had, they would have not addressed him as kindly as they did. He didn’t need that today. He didn’t want today to be ruined.

“Hi,” Dan replies cheerfully and when he turns around to Phil, who has a confused look on his face – clearly not aware of who Dan is speaking to. “These are children from my class with Mr Clarkson.”

He turns back to the children, seeing them all nod eagerly at Dan’s answer. Come to think of it, he has nothing to worry about with these children because he recalls them being the slightly nervous, more quiet group who sit at the front of the class. He doesn’t speak to them all that much because whenever they put their hands up, Mr Clarkson is normally the one who goes to them with him being at the front and Dan being at the back.

“We just wanted to say hello to you and your….” The one boy speaks up, after clearing his throat. He plays with his ginger hair for a few moments, clearly nervous. Dan could laugh that the boy is very obviously terrified to refer to whatever Phil is because he didn’t want to assume, but then Dan remembers that he is a child and Dan still technically has to continue the teacher role.

“My boyfriend,” Dan offers to ease the boy's nerves, seeing a shy smile spread across his face as he hears Dan respond for him.

“Oh, are you gay?”

“Yes,” Dan chuckles lightly, looking at Phil who is just staring at him with some fond look spread across his face. “I hope that’s okay?”

“Why would it matter to me? You’re a cool teacher, Mr Howell,” the boy replies, with more happiness in his voice than Dan thinks he has ever heard come from a boy his age. “Anyway, I hope you’re having a fun time, Mr Howell.. and Mr Howell’s boyfriend.”

Dan chuckles again as he watches the boy wave before turning around to run back to his friends who were sitting on one of the benches – not sitting how they should though, sitting on the part that your back should rest on.

Dan turns back to Phil and sees the remnants of the fond look he had just a few moments ago, “What?”

“You’re so good with them, Dan.”

Dan blushes, “Shut up. It’s nothing.”

“You knew how to handle them, more than I could ever do,” Phil shrugs as he dabs a piece of nori into the soy sauce pot before shoving it in his mouth whole. Dan thinks that’s the end of the conversation so he leans forward, hand flying towards the sushi pile, just as Phil opens his mouth again, “Anyway... Mr Howell, aye?”

Of course, Dan thinks as he rolls his eyes, continuing to grab a piece of nori for himself.

~~~~~

They spend the following hour cuddled up against one another, limbs tangled. It feels safe and right and Dan doesn’t want to ever take this moment for granted.

He thinks back to what Mr Clarkson said to him in his class and how you just _know_ if you’ve found the one and Dan truly thinks he does. He definitely isn’t in any rush to let Phil know he wants to spend forever with him but he finds comfort in knowing he knows. Now, he just wants to show Phil.

“It’s getting late, we should get home,” Phil sighs, almost like he hears Dan’s thoughts. Dan didn’t want to move out of this position and by the looks of that massive sigh, Phil didn’t want to either. Dan reluctantly moves his head from Phil’s shoulder, whining about how he was comfortable and didn’t want to move, making it clear that he didn’t want to leave.

The park is calm now. No children running around, no school kids that Dan very clearly knew around to annoy him and his boyfriend. Dan plants a small kiss on Phil’s cheek before cleaning up and standing up, reaching out a hand to offer Phil.

Phil takes it and stands up next to Dan, folding the blanket and placing it back on top of the picnic basket, along with the pillows. Dan wraps his hand around the picnic basket handles before using his free hand to hold Phil’s, “Come on Phil, let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hii everyone ! i hope you all had a good weekend <3
> 
> my weekend consisted of remembering to write this chapter and forgetting that phil wasn't doing a liveshow until i woke up this morning.


	21. chapter twenty-one

Dan didn’t know that his teaching assistant position finished earlier than the actual school term finished but he is blissfully aware now.

It’s not that he hates the idea. He loves the idea. He loves the idea of having an extra week off alongside the holidays that the schools have for Halloween (well, not for Halloween. It’s just a half term but for Halloween all the same). He loves it because he has time to aggressively finish all of his assignments for the qualification that he is still clutching at straws to achieve.

It’s not that he is blaming Phil but he’s blaming Phil for the lack of concentration on that part. It’s not like he can actively avoid his boyfriend and it’s not like he is made of self restraint. He’s a simple man with the attention span of a toddler when it comes to food. And it’s difficult to say no to when your boyfriend wants to see you and give you kisses – that’s the incredibly difficult part for Dan to say no to. He is definitely blaming Phil for his perfect mouth and it’s talents.

So when he realises he has an extra week of spare time before his November deadlines come rolling in, he is really happy about that. His university work can be done, and he can fit in some extra boyfriend attention time.

Sue him, he isn’t perfect.

He walks into work preparing for a day long torment being screamed at by children half his age because they have deadlines alike him but he walks into work and gets this pleasant surprise instead. Mr Clarkson informs him of the good news and pats him on his way to go home – apparently, Dan was meant to be aware of this when he got the internship come job here but Dan doesn’t remember.

As he is packing his over the shoulder bag to go back home, not really upset that it’s a wasted journey because at least he can go home and get a head start on his deadlines that he _really_ should have done by now, he hears the scuffle of children coming into their classroom.

He tries not to smile at the mutters of _Hi Mr Howell’s_ and _Hi Daniel's_ that are quickly scolded by Mr Clarkson saying students shouldn’t really be using teachers first names even if they are off the clock.

Dan closes his bag as he looks up, to see frowns on all of the student's faces. He’s surprised to see the younger class he usually assists Mr Clarkson with, instead of the much other class. Not that he prefers them, but just because he knows they have more of a fondness with him as opposed to the younger class.

“Why isn’t he working?”

“Did you sack him off, Clarkson?”

“Where is Dan going?”

“This isn’t fair!”

“You can’t do this! Criminal injustice!”

The chorus of cries that Dan hears almost overwhelms him, doing nothing more than melting his heart into a small little puddle in his chest. He didn’t know that he had such a stronghold over them until this very moment.

“I don’t have the power to sack Da- Mr Howell for one, so no. But teaching assistants always have longer off than the rest of the teachers,” Mr Clarkson laughs, ushering the students to take their seats so he can probably begin the class instead of talking about Dan.

“That’s not fair,” one student pipes up, with a smirk on her face that she directs straight to Dan. Dan rolls his eyes in response.

“Maybe not, but they have slightly different contracts and work commitments. He isn’t going to be here for the last week of term, but I can assure you he is still doing work,” Mr Clarkson explains, for which Dan is grateful for because he isn’t much of a speaker let alone an explainer. “Right, Dan?”

Dan literally sees the smirk across Mr Clarkson’s face before he opens his mouth and replies, “Y-yeah. I’m going to be busy all week.”

Dan turns back around to grab his bag off of his desk to put it over his shoulder when he hears the words that he didn’t want to hear. Not that they were bad. But much rather embarrassing.

“Have fun with your boyfriend, Mr Howell.”

Dan knows he’s turning bright red as he acknowledges the statement but tries to brush it off anyway. He didn’t expect to turn back around to see the very same boy who was far too nervous to even say the word boyfriend in front of Dan a few days ago when they bumped into him at the park. He for sure wasn’t nervous around the words anymore.

Dan couldn’t be angry. It’s kind of funny when he thinks before about it, so instead, he just rolls his eyes and offers a small wave as he leaves the classroom to go home.

~~~~~

Walking home doesn’t take too long, but he still isn’t used to it. He takes a break halfway through, walking into town to grab himself a coffee and a cake from Starbucks, because the half walk back worked up quite the appetite, and having a wander around Topman looking at clothes he couldn’t necessarily afford.

He does, however, make it home in all but one piece, ignoring the sweat on his brow and the sweat dripping down his spine (and thus the sheer level of unfit he is). He tries to put his key in the lock to walk in when he realises the door is already unlocked – not a complete shock to the system because that happens sometimes when Amelia comes to visit Lucas during their days off university lectures but surprising nonetheless.

He steps inside his flat to see shoes he knows are awfully familiar sitting outside his bedroom door and to hear a gaggle of laughter coming from the lounge with a voice he knows all too well. Well, strictly speaking, he knows all of the voices, but one sticks out like a sore thumb.

He takes off his own shoes, placing them alongside the shoes by his bedroom door before making his way around the lounge door to see who is home.

He isn’t surprised to see Lucas and Amelia chatting away on the sofa in front of the television, but he is surprised to see Phil sitting there with them. He has to all but literally, hold his heart in place to make sure it doesn’t melt and thus fall away as a reaction to the sheer wholesomeness of the situation he’s found himself in.

He thought he would spend today surrounded by children writing essays about the French Revolution in 1789, to then come home to nothingness and prepare for his next working day but instead, he gets this and his little heart can't take it.

“Why are you here?” Dan says quietly as he places his bag down by the side of the sofa before leaning in to place a kiss on Phil’s forehead, ignoring the voice Lucas makes in fake disgust at public displays of affection occurring and especially ignoring the coos and awes that Amelia is making.

“Shall I leave then?” Phil mocks feigned insult, placing the palm of his hand on his chest where his heart would be.

“No, stay,” Dan pouts as he sits on the edge of the sofa, shuffling backwards to force Phil to make room right next to him. Dan could easily

“How do you live with his frequent mood changes?” Lucas rolls his eyes as he stands up to take the mugs – empty as far as Dan can see – into the kitchen.

“I am right here!” Dan chokes out a laugh.

“I know but I wasn’t speaking to you,” Lucas winks as he places his hand on Dan’s shoulder whilst walking past. Dan absentmindedly places his hand over the top of Lucas’ – a habit he had giving Lucas platonic affection because he craved it sometimes. It wasn’t like they kissed or whatever, just some little hand-holding or innocent gestures here and there.

It’s nice that Phil doesn’t bat an eyelid either. He knows it isn’t anything to worry about and if it ever happened to be, Dan would speak to him about it. Dan doesn’t need to speak to him about it though, because Lucas is one of his best friends and once Dan has that perception on someone, it’s hard to unsee it and branch out of that mindset.

Dan knows that Phil isn’t bothered by the way he reacts when one less person is in the room. It’s not that Phil is anti public displays of affection, but he feels more comfortable when he isn’t being watched. He shuffles so Dan is almost smaller than him in the seat, not by a lot though as they are the same size, and mouths innocent but still important kisses on Dan’s shoulder, almost like he is saying hi properly.

“Why are you back early?” Phil speaks through the cloth of Dan’s shirt, not bothering to lift his head and just breathes in Dan’s scent instead. Dan tries not to question why Phil always does this, but he can imagine it’s a safety thing similar to how he likes Phil’s scent too – almost like coming back home.

“I didn’t know I actually finished a week earlier than the kids too,” Dan hums as he rests his head on Phil’s. It feels easy like he could have never imagined.

The hairs on Dan’s back all stand up when Phil huffs out a laugh before moving to kiss Dan’s neck lightly, “Do you want to go to bed?”

Dan doesn’t need to dignify that question with a response before he’s standing up, grabbing Phil’s hand and walking to his room.

~~~~~

A whole day passes like this. With Dan and Phil in bed, like they have absolutely nothing else to do with their time. That isn’t strictly true but it’s good enough. Dan has plenty of time, in theory, to catch up with his university work.

It’s a little past midnight and Phil is fast asleep, snoring beside Dan’s awake state.

Dan notices that Phil has nearly the entire duvet wrapped around him. One corner of the duvet is still barely covering Dan and Dan can't help but roll his eyes out of absolute fondness at the sight. He would complain. He could complain, because it’s the middle of October and he is completely naked with no duvet to perceive his modesty and keep him warm but he can’t help but simple at the sight beside him.

Despite the measly corner of the blanket being his only source of warmth, Dan didn’t feel cold. Dan could argue that he hadn’t felt an ounce of cold since Phil had entered his life, Phil was always there to supply _the entire bed_ Dan’s entire life with warmth.

It wasn’t that Phil is his own personal heated blanket because Phil always complained (and Dan could attest to it) about being cold. Phil was always shivering without at least five layers covering him at night.

Phil is a different type of warm.

Phil was warm in the sense that Dan always feels safe around him. Phil was warm in the same way you’d feel warm if you wore five winter coats in front of a log fire, but Dan isn’t wearing anything of the sort and the log fire is the vast amount of love Phil offers him.  
Phil is warm in the very same way that Dan is warm, according to Phil. They never explain what that means but for some reason, they both know exactly what the other is trying to say.

Dan pulls on the corner of the duvet, not to take the duvet off of Phil because he would never, but instead to give himself room to slide underneath and covering himself in the process. He scoots underneath so his bare chest is pressing firmly against Phil’s bare back before snaking one arm around Phil’s waist, rubbing faint circles in the skin there.

He quickly abandons his other arm in the space of Phil’s pillow just above Phil’s head and uses that as an excuse to stroke his fingers through Phil’s hair. It always marvels him how his heart is perfect even after hours of unspeakable activities that normally conclude with Dan having to grab a hairbrush to comb the knots out – the curse of curly hair.

He tries hard to not giggle at the soft sounds of Phil’s mouth parting, the whines that escape it and he fails at trying to not make a sound when he feels Phil lean into Dan’s touch.

“Is it morning already?” Phil whispers, barely audible through the croakiness of a voice that hasn’t spoken for a few hours due to sleep.

“No,” Dan whispers as he plants a couple of kisses along the skin on Phil’s shoulders. “Go back to sleep.”

There’s a moment of silence where Dan thinks for a second that Phil actually has gone to sleep until he hears his boyfriend speaking up again, “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I was just thinking.”

There’s another moment of silence where Dan thinks the exact same before he feels the weight in his arms move. The entire bed shakes for a second before he notices Phil is actively trying to turn around to face him, and so Dan releases his grip and allows Phil to do just that, deciding he isn’t totally opposed to seeing Phil’s pretty face again tonight.

What he didn’t expect to see however was a frown plastering Phil’s face and all Dan can think about is how desperately he wants to wipe that frown straight off, “About?”

“All good things this time.”

“Good,” Phil mutters as the tension across his face visibly leaves and Dan feels like he can breathe again. “Care to tell me?”

Dan blushes at the thought. He doesn’t want to share, it makes him incredibly vulnerable which Dan can’t say he is really used to yet. However, he also knows Phil wouldn’t judge him. Phil never judges him.

“I was just thinking about how perfect my life is at the moment, and particularly how I never want it to end,” Dan hums as he threads his fingers back into Phil’s hair again, deciding he can’t spend a moment without actively touching his boyfriend with innocent gestures.

Phil crawls into Dan’s chest, resting his head where Dan’s heart is (which Dan could laugh about if he wasn’t having such an intimate moment with his boyfriend right now) and Dan’s arms automatically find their rightful place around Phil’s body. He watches as Phil closes his eyes and Dan has to stop himself from prying those eyelids open so he can have one more look at the blue hues one more time tonight.

“I really don’t either, Dan,” Phil hums as he plants a delicate kiss on Dan’s collarbone before sighing and relaxing in Dan’s grip.

Dan is glad Phil feels the same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! i understand today isn't the usual posting day but i didn't post this weekend because i didn't have anything to post and now i do so i thought i'd give it yall early as a treat <3
> 
> also the next chapter is the last ;_______; that makes me really emotional to think about because i've been writing this for months but it's finally coming to an end. if you didn't know i have [another fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23894926/chapters/57446383) currently posting every tuesday which you can check out if you want! and i've also made a twitter strictly for posting about writing if you want to give it a follow [@sunflowrwitches](https://twitter.com/sunflowrwitches) so if my current wip isn't something you're interested in you can see whenever i post something new :D
> 
> i also plan to write a one shot in phil's pov for this au so that will come soon! but it may be a little while after this finishes because i want to take a break and focus completely on my new wip for a while (i realise writing two completely different aus is a lot of hard work for me!)
> 
> i hope u are all staying safe and i hope to see you all on do what thou wilt or on my twitter :3


	22. chapter twenty-two

A year later and Dan and his friends still frequent the Moon Under Water with absolutely no shame. They go every weekend mostly, if Sophia and Amelia have anything to say about it, and Dan tries to go as many times as he can. Dan doesn’t hate it like he used to. He doesn’t hate it because he isn’t the sad and single friend of the group (bar Lucas who is single by choice due to being utterly repulsed by the thought of dating anyone) and he has Phil.

They’re getting in a room that is Dan’s but is different to last time but that’s okay. There’s a lot of love in this room and Dan doesn’t hate it anymore. Sophia and Amelia are getting ready together on the bed, doing each other’s makeup in their dressing gowns gossiping about their work friends that Dan has no idea about but is listening and engaging in the conversation all the same. Lucas is lounging on the floor waiting for everyone to finish getting ready because he has been ready for hours.

Dan tries not to laugh too much when he realises, he is literally taking his time getting ready, along with Sophia and Amelia obviously, whilst Lucas just sits waiting. It’s always the way.

“Can you lot hurry up even a little bit?” Lucas sighs as he lifts his head up to look at Amelia in the face, who responds with a scrunched up face and her tongue poking out of her mouth slightly.

“Beauty takes time, Lucas.”

“Can tell.”

“Oi!”

Dan laughs because it’s always like this and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dan’s outfit choice is between a black button-down shirt and black ripped skinny jeans or a black band tee tucked into black boyfriend jeans – jeans that Amelia forced him to buy a few weeks ago when they went into town for a catch up.

“Ame, what do you think I should wear tonight?” Dan mutters as he looks into his wardrobe – Dan’s wardrobe but a different one from last time – at the vast amount of clothes he has. It hasn’t got any easier and he’d much rather Amelia narrow it down.

“Oh! The jeans you bought with me!” Amelia says excitedly as he puts the lid back on her mascara and places it down onto the bed. “Sophia, did you see those jeans? They are beautiful!”

“I did, and I love them!”

“Everyone say thank you Amelia,” Amelia sings as she stands up off of the bed to grab her clothes to get changed in Dan’s bathroom. Dan’s bathroom but a different one from last time nonetheless.

Dan watches Amelia walk into the bathroom with his bottom lip between his teeth deep in thought. He hears Sophia giggle faintly in the distance but he doesn’t shake out of the thought process trance he is in.

“Dan for a gay man, you aren’t half drooling over my girlfriend in your bathroom,” Sophia laughs as she finishes putting away all of their make up because of course, Amelia hasn’t bothered to clear up after herself.

“Huh?” Dan says, suddenly snapping out the trance.

“You’re in your head again,” Sophia says like it’s a matter of fact and Dan doesn’t like the _again_. But he can’t deny that the _again_ is a valid point to make.

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Hm,” Dan shakes his head, turning back to the wardrobe in front of him, pulling out two button ups that he could potentially pair with his boyfriend jeans. “Which one?”

He’s grateful that Sophia doesn’t push when she points to the simple black button-up without saying anything else.

~~~~~

Dan tries to not be annoyed when he gets ready and the girls take the best part of another half an hour to get ready. He knows they like making a big fuss about going out even though they aren’t necessarily finding anyone at the club because they have each other. He has Phil and he still wants to make an effort to look pretty when he goes out.

However, Dan would be lying if he said Amelia and Sophia didn’t look absolutely stunning right now. He can never get over how his friends are all beautiful in their own ways. Amelia with her ashy grey curly hair and bright brown eyes and Sophia with her ginger hair in space buns with blue eyes that steal the room, every single room she walks into in fact.

They all catch a taxi to the Moon under Water like always and Dan pays like always. If he had a pound for every time he pays for the taxi and his friends all mutter _yeah we’ll pay you back_ for them to actually not pay him back, he’d probably be a millionaire and not have to worry about them paying him back a few quid.

Truth be told he doesn’t have to worry, because he doesn’t mind. If he minded, he wouldn’t constantly order the taxi.

They make it into the bar in one piece, somehow even though Amelia always decides to down a bottle of wine before they leave the house and she hasn’t ever been the strongest drinker. And they don’t have any seats that they label as their own but they definitely always run for the corner booth which is right next to the bar, which Sophia ditches them for in order to buy the first round.

Dan grabs Amelia’s hand and drags her to the booth that Lucas is singlehandedly holding down for them, because funnily enough even with bright green hair he is the most intimidating of them all.

They all sit down just as Sophia returns with their round and she pushes their drinks in front of them.

“What did you get us?” Lucas laughs as he stares at the concoction in front of him.

“Jack Daniels and coke for Dan. Malibu on the rocks for me. Gin and tonic for Ame. Aaaand sex on the beach for you Lucas,” Sophia reels off after taking a mouthful of her own drink. Dan could watch her drink alcohol all the time, she doesn’t even give anything a reaction.

“You always get me the most ironic drinks,” Lucas laughs but tucks into his drink all the same.

“Well, you should have sex on the beach at least once in your life and this is the only way for you,” Sophia teases.

They get into talking about their days which is easy enough. Dan always feels comfortable enough to be himself around his group of friends, luckily he has found them for life.

“How’s your work going?” Sophia exclaims as she runs her finger absentmindedly through the hair on her girlfriend’s head and Dan watches as Amelia all but literally purrs into it.

“Oh yeah! New job! How is it?” Amelia butts in, laughing lightly.

Dan takes a swig of his drink before speaking, “Yeah new job. It’s good! Very different from the old school but it’s more me, I think.”

“I’m glad you found something more you and you didn’t feel worried about wasting money,” Sophia replies with a genuine smile on her face that allows Dan to know she means it.

It was a difficult time around nine months ago for Dan. He had always wanted to be a teacher so that when it came to university and his career path it was a no brainer and he obviously went straight into teaching history. It didn’t occur to him until nine months ago that people change and you may not necessarily want the same thing in your twenties you wanted when you were eleven. And that’s okay.

So Dan took it upon himself to quit his teaching qualification and move into another career pathway. Luckily, his university didn’t mind so much and allowed him to transfer onto another course and keep his credits. He wasn’t anywhere near step one again, he was in the same place but in a different environment.

He clears his throat as he looks up from his drink to catch Sophia and Amelia speaking in hushed tones about something that clearly was nothing to do with him so he decided to take it upon himself to turn away and talk to Lucas.

~~~~~

They all decide it’s Dan’s round even though they stated he wouldn’t have a round tonight to get him to come out. He stands up all the same with minimal protest to head to the bar. He orders the same again for everyone and whilst he waits for his drinks to be handed to him, he feels the vacant barstool next to him be taken.

Dan knows it’s probably Amelia or Sophia coming to help him with the drinks like they usually do so he doesn’t bother turning his head. That is until they cough to get his attention.

He isn’t exactly shocked to see it not be one of his friends, because he is in a gay bar where people do come and order drinks quite frequently. It isn’t odd for someone to be standing next to him so he innocently smiles at the person next to him and turns his head back towards the bartender.

“What’s a guy like you doing all alone in a bar like this?”

Dan could have guessed. He knows he isn’t the ugliest person in the world. He knows he does catch peoples attention for being conventionally attractive but he does make him hold back a groan all the same.

“I’m not alone actu-“

“What’s your name?” The guy interrupts Dan and honestly, Dan is tired of it. He knows he sounds annoyed when he opens his mouth and mutters his name with a sharp hush.

“Dan?”

The guy clearly must not get it because he reaches his hand out in an offer for Dan to shake, and Dan isn’t completely rude so he accepts it, reaching over to shake the hand. It isn’t a strong grip but it isn’t a weak one either. “The names Jason.”

“Hi, Jason,” Dan lets go of Jason’s hand and turns his head back to the bartender for the millionth time tonight – honestly why is it taking so long to get his drinks? He just wants to go back to his table and forget this sorry encounter ever happened.

“So, Dan, what’s a pretty boy like you doing alone?”

“As I said, not alone.”

“But,” Jason laughs. And it’s not like the laughter that Dan is accustomed to, it’s nothing like Phil’s. It’s not innocent and carefree and gentle, it’s sharp and aggressive and patronising. It’s everything Dan hates. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, and I know I’m not, but no one is here?”

“Yes beca-“

“So Dan, let me get you a drink?”

Honestly, if Dan was the aggressive type, he would have snapped by now. Maybe got kicked out of the bar for good measure. But instead, he just grits his tweet and tries to be as nice as possible.

Before Dan even has the opportunity to open his mouth, he feels a warm and comforting hand on his waist and a breath of fresh air. He tilts his head up, away from the bartender and away from this annoying ass man Jason, to see his boyfriend.

Dan didn’t know Phil was going to come today, hence the bad mood he had been in. Phil has almost become one of the group and always came to their drinking sessions and it felt odd for him to not be coming today. But he has and it fills Dan with joy.

“Have you got the drinks in?” Phil exclaims as he sits down next to Dan and completely ignores the other guy. Dan watches Phil’s eyes scatter across his face almost like he is checking for any signs of discomfort and danger on Dan’s face. Dan can’t help but wonder what would happen if he did.

“Yeah just waiting for them now, bub,” Dan replies. It’s much easier to play into the boyfriend role now when he is actually a boyfriend, more specifically Phil’s boyfriend.

It takes a few moments of clearly exaggerated conversation between Dan and Phil for Jason to get the message and slowly pan away.

“God, you did that again?” Dan laughs as he watches Jason storm off, slightly annoyed that he didn’t get his dick wet tonight.

“Again? I vaguely remember it was different last time,” Phil mutters. He grabs a menu from the side of the bar and scans it looking at the options he can pick.

“The only thing different is that we pretended to be engaged and this time we were just boyfriends,” Dan says nonchalantly whilst the bartender comes finally with their drinks (minus Phil’s obviously) and places them on a tray in front of him.

“Hm,” Phil says as he stands up and picks up the tray before Dan can so much as grab it. “Maybe we should change that.”

Dan doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He clearly heard it but Phil was muttering so maybe he got it wrong? All he could muster up in response is a tilt of the head and a frown plastering his face and an inaudible noise that you can excuse as a _huh?_

Phil, of course by typical Phil fashion, doesn’t acknowledge what he said and continues to the booth that their friends are sat at whilst Dan just has to follow like a puppy behind him. He just about catches the stream of excited hello’s that come from everyone at the mere sight of Phil.

~~~~~

The night quickly draws to an end, with far too many drinks in lieu of a celebration for Dan’s new job. He knows deep down it wasn’t a celebration for him, because they would have gone out anyway, but he takes what he can get from these people.

Now it’s just him and Phil in their bedroom. Their shared bedroom. Taking off their trousers clumsily due to the amount of alcohol in their system before getting into bed.

Dan gets in first, wrapping the duvet around him neatly, and then Phil joins him, accidentally tugging the entire duvet off of Dan’s body.

Dan whines in protest, trying to tug the duvet back for himself and Phil whines about being cold. It becomes a whining contest for several minutes before they calm down and take comfort snuggled up in the middle of the bed together sharing the duvet. They don’t talk about how they planned to cuddle up together anyway, they just bask in the knowledge they both won.

It’s silent for a few minutes – maybe at least ten, Dan isn’t sure – and Dan remembers a moment that happened in the bar earlier that night. Sober him wouldn’t bring it back up again but Dan isn’t sober right now. He definitely isn’t drunk but he has a few alcohols in him, enough to warrant not thinking before he opens his mouth, “Yeah, what did you mean in the bar earlier?”

Phil laughs lightly and Dan runs his hands through his still quiffed hair, the hairspray isn’t really doing its job anymore because more than a few strands are taking their own place in their own little world on Phil’s head. He looks cute all the same, but Dan just wants his question answered.

“I didn’t think you heard me actually,” Phil giggles nervously.

“Well I did, tell me,” Dan tries to say casually but it comes out as more of a whine.

Dan can tell Phil’s brain is going one hundred miles per hour right now. How? Because he feels Phil’s face scrunch up and then relaxes a few times before he speaks again, “I said we should change that.”

“Yeah,” Dan pushes, suddenly knowing that isn’t enough to end this conversation in his brain tonight. He wouldn’t push completely if Phil was uncomfortable, but they are in that stage of their relationship to know when the other is too uneasy by a conversation topic and Phil definitely isn’t uncomfortable. “Change what?”

Phil groans before pushing himself away from Dan and for a second, Dan thinks he pushed too far and fucked everything up. He is so sure they are going to argue until Phil sits back on his butt right next to Dan and grabs his hand to play with – another thing that he has noticed Phil does since moving in together, Phil uses Dan as a safety blanket and a comforter just like Dan does with him.

“I want to marry you one day, Dan.”

Dan almost chokes on his own saliva, almost chokes so hard that he swallows his tongue and maybe his entire being. He thought this was where the conversation was heading but the bluntness of that statement and the smile on Phil’s face is far different than he imagined it would be in his head. Not a bad different.

“I don’t mean, let’s get married tonight or tomorrow or a week from now. But I’d like you to know I’m thinking about that and wouldn’t be opposed to marrying you one day in the near but also distant future,” Phil continues easily, a stark difference from the frowning mess he was a couple of minutes ago. Maybe Dan’s hands really are a comfort blanket for him.

Dan swallows any remaining saliva in his mouth before responding, “Okay.”

“Okay?” Phil looks up from the glare he is giving Dan’s hand with raised eyebrows.

“Okay,” Dan shrugs. Dan may be shrugging externally but internally he is definitely not just shrugging. He is screaming. He is crying. He is doing everything imaginable for a reaction of the love of your life saying they want to marry you one day.

There’s a beat of silence before Dan feels a kick to his shin and a strained laugh from Phil’s mouth.

“Don’t just okay me, say yes or no or SOMETHING.”

“I don’t know what you want from me? I guess I’ll marry you in the future,” Dan shrugs again. The butterflies are building up to the point where he can almost feel himself exploring from the inside out but he will not let Phil win tonight. He wants to have a short moment teasing him.

“What does that even mean?” Phil screeches, using his own strength and wrap around Dan’s hand to pull him up so they are both sitting in bed rather than lying down. Phil’s eyes aren’t avoiding Dan’s anymore and he’s forcing eye contact whether or not Dan wants it. Dan can feel Phil becoming frustrated and he caves.

“It means, if this is your idea of proposing then I will, I will marry you,” Dan smiles before resting his forehead against Phil’s own.

He watches as relief flushes through his boyfriend – maybe fiancé now? He isn’t sure – before he pulls away from his forehead to only lean back in to plant a few peppered kisses onto Phil’s lips.

“Okay,” Phil huffs out a laugh before pushing Dan back down on the bed and kissing him again.

Dan isn’t sure for how long they spend giggling and idly kissing and innocently touching each other, but he doesn’t mind. It may be the middle of the night and he may regret it in the morning when he’s overly tired and reluctant to leave the bed even though he knows he’ll regret staying in bed throughout the morning, but for right now, he can’t bring himself to care.

For right now, he is just happy to bask in the admiration for the love of his life and he truly thinks that come morning, he may not even care all that much then either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;_______________; thats the end!
> 
> thank you everyone for coming on this journey with me. this entire au was something i adored writing and really helped me improve and gain confidence in my writing :3
> 
> if you didnt know i have another fic called [do what thou wilt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23894926/chapters/57446383) with im currently posting every tuesday and i also made a twitter [sunflowrwitches](https://twitter.com/sunflowrwitches) dedicated to posting about my writing :D
> 
> im working on another fic to start posting in the near future. it'll be modern day dnp with no supernatural/spiritual aspects attached so if my other fic isnt your cup of tea then you have that to look forward to <3


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